


When You Wish Upon a Star

by claritylore



Series: What Dreams May Come (aka, Psychic Supersoldiers in Love) [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Asgard Magic, Dreamsharing, Evil Steve Rogers (temporary in AU setting), HYDRA won (temporary in AU setting), Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Infinity Gems, M/M, Major Character Deaths (temporary in AU setting), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond, Psychological Trauma, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-03-29 23:37:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3914923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claritylore/pseuds/claritylore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to 'Once Upon a Dream', set a few weeks after the end of that story. (TL:DR summary inside for those who don't want to read that.)</p><p>HYDRA are after Bucky again. Steve takes a risk and is offered a chance to prevent Bucky from ever becoming the Winter Soldier in the first place. In the aftermath of his decision, Tony, Clint, Thor and Natasha find themselves along for a ride into the psychic dreamspace with Steve, but none of them are prepared for what awaits them there...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TL:DR for Once Upon a Dream - Steve has lucid dreams after receiving the serum, mainly of the apartment he and Bucky used to share, having a romantic/sexual relationship with him there during the war, even though in real life they were platonic BFFs. After Steve landed that ship in the ice, he spent 70 years in what he initially thought was their shared afterlife, with a Bucky who was disappearing lots and reappearing with his memories wiped, trapped in an endless dream that slowly grew darker. After waking up, Steve eventually ran into the Winter Soldier and realised the whole thing was real (he tested this by visiting Bruce Banner, who is also a serum recipient and in the dreamscape in his own area) including their relationship. After the battle on the helicarriers, he reached out to Bucky mentally and slowly helped him to heal. Bucky finally revealed that he'd been appropriated by Nick Fury and was assassinating HYDRA targets for him in Europe. Steve went after him and helped him to break free, but not before they discovered that they could use the psychic connection outside of dreams to flash into each others minds in times of stress.

It was in a sleepy moment in the suite nicknamed the Star Gallery Suite at the top of Stark Tower, where the ceiling was a glass bowl allowing a boundless view of the heavens, that Bucky finally told Steve straight out that he loved him. Even if Steve knew that, sure as he knew his own name, it should have been a treasured moment. Except that what Bucky told him right before it was something that would leave Steve restless and upset.

"I made a wish on a star once, when we were kids." Sleepy, Bucky sounded so sleepy, barely awake and mumbling into his collarbone. "Was that winter you got real sick, we all thought you'd had it. I climbed out of the fire escape and up onto the roof 'cause I didn't want your Ma to see me bawling. I spoke to a big ol' shooting star and you know what, it actually spoke back to me."

Steve, tired himself, was only half listening at this point. "Oh yeah. What did the star say?" 

"I made my wish that you'd live. The lady said that weren't in doubt, that you were gonna shape the century, but it would be a terrible life, filled with all this pain and bad things. I told her _no, let me have that. Give him his destiny. Give me his pain, he don't need that. I'll bear it. I want it._ " Bucky was smiling against his skin at this point, dreamily, hardly seeming to realise the gravity of his words.

Steve nuzzled into Bucky's hair, seeking the memory amidst his rising heartbeat and stress, getting a glimpse of a tear-stained barely teenaged Bucky and a beautiful blonde woman made of light, eyes burning orange, a pendant like a star hanging around her neck, reaching down to him from the sky like a vision. Just a snatch of something, nothing substantial except the impression that it was important. He held his breath but tried not to tense up, not wishing to give away just how disturbed he was by what Bucky was confessing.

"I reckon that star was looking out for you. You were always destined for... something..." Bucky mumbled, losing coherance. "M'glad I made that wish... glad every day... I love you, so much..." He was gently snoring into Steve's skin barely a few seconds later.

Ordinarily, Steve would be letting himself go under too, happily heading to their shared dream world to enjoy more time together in a different way. Instead he stared up at the stars through the glass ceiling, wide awake, his mind racing.

Maybe before waking up in the new century, Bucky's words might have been meaningless fancy to him. But Steve had fought aliens and seen technological miracles up close too many times now. He had an understanding of the universe far beyond anything he could have imagined when he was just that skinny kid from Brooklyn. So his heart wouldn't stop hammering thinking about what Bucky had said.

Gently, he slipped out of the sheets, careful not to wake Bucky up. He slipped on some pants and hurried out of the suite, padding along the corridor in bare feet and into the elevator. Steve headed down to the apartment Tony had let them take over down in the main section fo the tower and went straight to the desk drawer where he kept his sketchpad.

Trying to draw a likeness for someone he'd only seen a fleeting glimpse of wasn't an easy thing to do, but he kept erasing parts of her face until she looked as close as possible to what he'd seen in Bucky's memory. He coloured her in, bringing her eyes to life with that strange orange glow he'd seen and doing his best to replicate how that pendant she wore looked like a captured star, and starred at the drawing for a while, growing more and more disturbed.

He contemplated finding a way to speak to Thor but knew that his friend was spending some personal time with Jane over in London. It seemed like an overreaction to bother him with something he would be pretty unlikely to know anything about.

Yet the drawing was almost staring back at him and he was cold to the bone thinking about it. It had been too real, that flash of memory. Bucky might have dismissed it back then, and made his peace with it now, if he had even given it further consideration, but Steve was stuck with an uncomfortable feeling about it, like the foundations of everything he'd taken for granted were turning to sand.

He headed back up to the top floor of the tower where Bucky was still sprawled on the mountain of cushions that had been left at the centre of the incomplete suite under the stars. It was such a calming and beautiful spot, used so frequently by Tony Stark's neverending stream of guests as a hangout or unofficial bedroom in some cases, that it just wasn't ever finished. That was part of the charm really.

Steve hung back in the doorway, everything inside him tugging forward at the sight of Bucky wrapped around a pillow, skin glowing under the pale moonlight, that metal arm one long gleam of silver light. Everything about their present situation was a miracle. No matter how painful the journey had been for both of them, Steve guiltily shared Bucky's sentiment that it had all been worth it for this present happiness. It was beyond anything Steve had known he could even feel, living in a state of amazing atunement with his lifelong guardian and friend, free to love him without anyone to tell him no.

The psychic connection that had been bestowed on them was an everpresent hum within their bodies now, made stronger by their constant proximity. It was manifesting more and more in little ways, like the time he'd been massaging shampoo into Bucky's hair in the shower and felt it as if it were happening to him, fingers writhing on his own scalp. Or that time when Bucky had drunk some coffee that was too hot and Steve felt the sting on his tongue. Best of all were those moments when they were forehead to forehead, bodies moving in a synchronised rut, Steve moving inside him urgently while Bucky keened and pressed back, where they'd both had precious moments of flying between minds, every sensation heightened into a frenzy.

In sleep, Bucky was still and almost completely silent. Steve didn't want to linger long, knowing he would soon be missed in the dream space they lived within at night. All he could do was set his concern aside for now and continue as normal.

But the worry about Bucky's confession stayed with him, returning into his mind every now and then at odd moments in the days following. For the most part, he managed to keep his preoccupation about it to himself. He played any lapses in thought off as nothing, confining any serious thinking about it to his morning runs and sessions with the punching bag.

Bucky was spending a lot of his time piecing together their future travel plans, even though remembering certain places left him staring off into nothing without warning sometimes. He assured Steve that he could handle it, so it was an activity Steve was happy to leave him to getting on with more or less alone. Much as he didn't want to let Bucky out of his sight, he was developing a sense for his moods even when he was in another part of the tower, making it easier not to hover over him all the time. He had started to feel Bucky's moments of anxiety, his attempts to push past them and the pressure release when he made it. It was sort of soothing, being there for him even when he wasn't physically there.

Bruce was fascinated by each minor new development in their psychic connection of course. It didn't apply to him in the same way, either because his serum was too different in its realisation or because it was a bonding unique to Steve and Bucky that had actived these extra skills, so he was able to stand back and do his tests objectively. He was eagerly writing up the results and devising new ways to extend the experiment. Steve didn't have the heart to put an end to it, though he could tell Bucky was getting impatient after three weeks of scrutiny.

They were essentially just waiting around for Bruce to give the go ahead for them to leave. Though Stark was talking about putting together a game plan to deal with some left over HYDRA bases in the US he had gathered intel on, Steve was determined to have nothing to do with it for Bucky's sake. He didn't give an official resignation from the Avengers, but made it clear that he was going on hiatus until such time as he and Bucky made a joint decision to return, with the one caveat that if another planet-endangering alien invasion occured in the meantime he would probably come and help out then. Tony made it clear he wasn't best pleased with Captain America handing in his membership card to his superhero club; he'd been eyeing Bucky with distrust since Steve had hauled him in there and begged Tony to fix up his arm, mostly staying out of their way since then. But Steve refused to feel bad about it. He and Bucky had shed more blood and tears than anyone to stop the threat of HYDRA, for far longer too. No one could say that they weren't due a break.

Inevitably, Bucky pinned Steve down one night on the subject of why he was having moments of extreme worry. That hyperawareness wasn't one way. Steve didn't want to admit it but nor did he have the ability to lie to Bucky. "That thing you told me, about the star, the woman, it's bothering me."

It took Bucky a few seconds to understand and then Steve could feel his unease rising. "I... shouldn't have told you about that," he growled and pulled away from Steve, sitting on the edge of their bed with his back turned. "Don't know why I did."

"Was it real?"

Bucky sighed long and hard. "I didn't think so back then. Now... I've seen a lot of things over the years. I do wonder about her."

Steve crawled over and wrapped his arms around Bucky's torso, kissing his shoulder, both offering comfort and asking for forgiveness for not mentioning his concern sooner. "I'm thinking about calling Thor. Asking him."

"Your friend from Asgard?"

"If he doesn't know, he'll know someone who might have a good idea about it. He always does."

"No, Steve." Bucky shook his head, sadly. "It's better not to know. Doesn't matter really, does it? We gotta look forward, not back."

"I guess." Though it didn't entirely stop him from thinking about that woman, and the implications of what Bucky had wished for, Steve had to accept his answer and put it aside. Even if Bucky had somehow made a pact long ago to change their fates, there was no way to change a thing about it now anyway.

They settled into routine, helping Bruce, enjoying their time lying around in warm parks and on perfect golden beaches in their shared dreams, sparring on occasion, making up for lost time. Sam came for a visit on Steve's suggestion, both to meet Bucky as he was now and to be introduced to Tony with a not too subtle suggestion that he should use of his skills to remake the Falcon's broken wings for the betterment of a reformed Avengers team.

Tony wasn't much in the mood to be pleasant though, his mouth permanently set into a disapproving line. He seemed alright with Bruce and willing to indulge his friend in letting Steve and Bucky stick around as this 'psychic pet project' but he wasn't being pleasant about that, or about Sam visiting. Steve was tempted to call him on it when he made some snide comment about housing the entire 'Captain American fanclub' under one roof, but he knew it would be pointless. Tony was just... Tony.

Sam's visit was great regardless of Tony's determination to be in a bad mood. Steve felt giddy when he and Bucky made friends quickly, despite what the Winter Soldier had done to Sam's precious wings. Sam had a few suggestions for their travel plans and had plenty of knowledge about some of the places on Bucky's itinerary, giving them lots to discuss. Privately, Sam made it clear he was amazed by how well Bucky was doing, filling Steve with warmth at the positive expert opinion. They went running, caught a movie and listened to a few more of the tunes on Sam's 'bring Steve Rogers up to date' list. It was always so easy hanging with Sam and by the end of his stay, Steve had almost forgotten all about the mysterious woman from Bucky's memory of a wish long ago.

The evening after Sam headed home to Washington, with a cheerfully wished good luck to them both on their big worldwide adventure, JARVIS called Steve and Bucky to the boardroom, where they came upon Tony looking at a familiar face on a big floating screen.

Steve's heart seized up a little seeing a fuzzy impression of Natasha Romanov up there on the screen. It was immediately obvious that something was wrong; the signal was choppy and vague but through the fuzz, it was obvious that she had a cut to the head that was bleeding. Wherever she was, it looked dark. Maybe underground.

"There you are," Tony greeted them without turning round. "Oh don't stand on ceremony, this isn't live. JARVIS only just managed to clean it up enough to find this encrypted video buried inside. It was sent on the super extra secret Avengers comms channel... We have one of those by the way."

"And you only just told us this now?" Steve said, incredulously.

"It's only been a few hours since it arrived."

"What's happened?" 

"Hard to know for sure. She said something about HYDRA - shocker I know. JARVIS, replay it."

Steve and Bucky watched as the video was rewound and started up again, a mess of lines and fuzz with rapidly .

" _...position pinned down... compromised... don't... maybe... looking for something... Fury said they'd cleaned out his datab... think they want the Winter Soldier... setting this video to autosend in 2 minutes... contingency..._ " The video vibrated with the sound of some loud banging, like doors being smashed open, making it obvious that it was being recorded on a phone from a hiding place. As Natasha backed away from the camera, there were flashes of gunfire amid the fuze and then the whole thing froze up completely.

At that moment, Bruce came in and looked between the three of them. "What did I miss?" he asked, probably too jovial for the heavy mood in the room.

"We can't get an exact fix on where it was sent from but it was somewhere near Budapest," Tony continued, ignoring him. "Can't get hold of Natasha and nothing else has been sent since then."

Steve hated sensing Bucky pushing down his distress, hiding it behind a face set in stone. They had been so close to freedom, to believing they could just go and enjoy the world for a little while, the message was an absolute gut punch of the worst kind. He immediately wanted to wrap his arms around Bucky, draw him close, mostly just to reassure himself that everything was still alright.

"Then it's not safe for me to be here. I should go," Bucky muttered, gruffly, shrinking away from him and heading for the door, only stopping because Bruce was unintentionally standing in his way.

"Hey, no wait... This is the safest place for you to be," Steve protested.

"Not... I don't mean _I'm_ in danger," Bucky growled with exasperation, and Steve practically heard him tack the word 'jackass' onto the end, though it wasn't audible. "The Black Widow has been compromised. If what she said is correct, it's only a matter of time before they trace me here, if they haven't already. You're all in danger. I gotta go to ground for a while."

"This tower is fully secure. We'll call in the Avengers and come up with a plan." Steve wasn't about to give up so easily.

Tony was giving Bucky a cold stare. He let it fall a little when he saw that Steve had turned to him and was watching, but it didn't completely disappear. "I'm still remodelling after the last attack on this tower but hey, what's a few million dollars between friends." 

Bucky gave Tony a sharp nod and Tony returned it, still staring daggers, and for a moment Steve had the unnerving impression that he had missed something important along the way somewhere.

"The thing I don't get is, why go after Natasha?" Tony continued, pacing, one hand waving in the air animatedly. "She has no link to Barnes. No info, right? That just makes no sense."

"Hard to say. For now let's worry about the immediate threat." Steve had switched into full on Captain America mode now, taking on a well practiced air of command. "The tower needs to be fully locked down. No way in, no way out. At least until we can figure out what they may be planning."

"Great. Pepper's due back from her mom's tomorrow. She's going to kill me," Tony grumbled under his breath.

Bucky shook his head and Steve felt waves of anger, frustration and the heavy weight of guilt coming from him as he stormed out, almost knocking an increasingly worried looking Bruce aside. Steve immediately moved to follow but Bruce actually put a hand up to stop him.

"Even _I_ felt that," Bruce said, quietly. "Give him a second."

Steve shrank back, actually feeling a twang of pain in chest. It was so hard to resist the urge to try and soothe Bucky now that they were so much more closely linked mentally than they ever had been before. But he had to acknowledge that Bruce was giving good advice and that it would be better to give him some space.

"Right, so, planning," Tony leapt back in. "What do you do with a problem like the Winter Soldier?"

Steve was right on the cusp of starting an argument with Tony but he bit his tongue to avoid saying something he'd later regret. "Assemble the others. Keep trying Natasha. Also, try Nick Fury. She said something about his files being cleaned out, so HYDRA must be after him too and we need to know what they were after." When no obvious move was made to do as he said, he glared at Tony. "Problem?"

There was something unsaid hanging on Tony's lips, that he seemed to be struggling to hold in. In the end, his shoulders sagged and he sighed. "Fine. JARVIS, you heard the Captain. Bruce, come help me would ya?"

Bruce looked between them, like a child watching his parents fighting, but scuttled over as requested. Steve could tell that Tony wanted to talk to Bruce alone and that was just fine by him.

He turned to leave, to go find Bucky, but there was a sudden pop and the room went dark for a moment, only the soft illumination of non-mains powerered tech remaining. There was a whirring noise and some of the lights flickered back on.

"JARVIS, what the hell was that?"

The only response was a garbled fuzz over the inbuilt wall speakers, short and staccato.

"Power cut," Bruce postulated. He went over to the wall to wall windows to look out over the city. "Not just us. Look."

Steve and Tony followed his lead and looked out over a city in darkness, punctuated only by car headlights and the sound of distant vehicle crashes and yelling from the streets below."

"Why has the power only come back on here?"

"Oh please," Tony huffed, like it was somehow obvious. "Isolated backup generators, obviously. JARVIS is probably rebooting. I hate when that happens, he always takes ages. The mood lighting will have to stay until main power is restored."

Bruce turned to Steve, frowning. "Get Barnes."

They were clearly thinking the exact same thing. Steve spun and headed back for the door. Once again, he was stopped in his tracks as the television screen burst to life. Not just that, but Tony's datapad and a TV in the corner did the same, showing the same gradually clearing static.

It slowly cleared itself up on all of the screens and revealed the image of a man in a suit. The moment his face became clear, they were all gaping at him in surprise.

"Is that...?" Tony began, hesitantly.

Alexander Pierce was peering back at them in a closed room with a faintly yellow glow. He smirked into the camera, apparently relishing the moment of his reveal.

Steve felt a burst of absolute terror kick him in the gut and both he and Bruce drew in a shocked breath in perfect unison. That even Bruce was picking up on it that told Steve just how strong it was.

"Bucky," Steve gasped and started to run.


	2. Chapter 2

Every surface with a screen on it had been taken over, Pierce's face everywhere, his voice coming across in every corner of the Tower on a signal that was a little dim and fuzzy, but strong enough to be unmistakable in content. 

"I am your Director, Asset," he said, his voice a bit gruffer than Steve remembered. "I never ceased to be. Any service commands that I have not given to you are null and void. Furthermore, you have not completed your missions." He said the last part like a gently chiding father. "I'm very disappointed."

If Tony was trying to shut the everything down, as Steve hoped he was, he was taking his sweet time. And Bucky wasn't on their floor.

"Therefore I have no choice but to enact Protocol Crimea. All targets of code level six which have not been eliminated are reinstated with immediate effect. All hostiles in your vicinity are also level six. Report to Safehouse 24 by any means necessary. Don't disappoint me again." He gave a nod and then the signal was cut.

It had to be some sort of computer effect. Steve knew from catching up on recent movies that the possibilities were endless now. He'd seen the footage of Nick Fury gunning Alexander Pierce down, and Natasha had been the one who confirmed his death to Steve even before that. Even if that video was somehow doctored, he trusted her not to lie on that subject. There was simply no way Pierce was still alive.

But regardless, Steve had learned one important feature of the Winter Soldier's programming; _Reactivation of incomplete mission supercedes later mission based priorties._ Conceivably, given what had just been stated, that meant Nick Fury giving him a termination of service order had just been wiped out, dragging up all those imbeded protocols that they had considered put to bed once again.

His panic increased as, the moment the screens switched off, it was like a guillotine had dropped on the fear he was sensing coming from Bucky. It all suddenly cut off, leaving nothing but emptiness in its wake. He hoped that, somehow, Bucky had been knocked out and was just safely unconscious somewhere. The alternative was too upsetting to consider.

Ordinarily he'd call on JARVIS to locate Bucky but without that option he had to go on instinct. Though he didn't want to think about why, he found himself heading for the armory workshop, where all sorts of bits of advanced weaponry would be lying around in various states of repair thanks to Tony's inability to work on one thing at a time, and where his shield was currently being cleaned and stress tested. That area wasn't kept locked up tightly in the same way the actual weapons storage facility was. If Steve wanted to find something lethal at short notice, that's where he would head.

Not that Steve wanted to examine that line of thinking too closely.

The lights in the tower were still dim and sporadic in their energy saving mode, casting it in far more eerie light than he was used to. Everything was suddenly unfamiliar in the darkness, made more unsettling with the faint bursts of chaotic noise coming from the city below, just sharp enough for his supersoldier hearing to pick up.

Since their usual comms were out, he considered calling Tony on his cellphone for an update on JARVIS or the power situation, only to remember that he'd left it on the table by his bed. He was definitely on his own from here on out.

Everything was too quiet when he reached the workshop. Some innate instinct was ringing in his mind like a proximity alarm and he narrowly ducked just as an arrow whipped through the space he had been occupying, right where his head had been. Steve rolled behind a counter, calculating the trajectory to get a gauge on his location.

"Bucky!" he yelled. "It's me, it's Steve. I know you don't want to do this."

There was a flicker of something, like butterfly wings made of light flapping in the darkness of his mind, letting in something discernable. He felt a secondhand spike of devastation, sharp in his chest, then it was gone again.

"That wasn't Pierce. He's dead. You know that! You don't have to follow his orders!"

Something told Steve that Bucky was repositioning himself. He knew he had to get to his shield, as it was his best shot to counter any further arrows while the room was dark and providing too much cover to his unwitting adversary.

He rolled and kept his movements light. Then there was a burst of blue light and sudden heat, scorching his skin. The counter he had been sheltering behind was completely disintegrated into toxic-looking blue sludge.

Steve leapt over it, careful to avoid touching whatever it was, gathering momentum with a roll and using another counter as cover to get closer to Bucky. The second weapon he'd picked up looked a lot like the sort of energy pistols Steve had seen HYDRA operatives use way back when, modified and probably updated. While not everything in the workshop was a weapon, Tony sure did like to tinker with them, just like his father once had. There were a dozen ways to kill someone lying around on the workbenches, but what Steve needed was a weapon of defence.

His shield was not far from Bucky's position but he had to retrieve it, trusting the near-indestructable vibranium to give him his best chance against the energy weapon should Bucky decide to risk firing it directly at him. Steve predicted that he wouldn't try that though, knowing enough about its probable reflective properties not to risk zapping himself accidently. The Winter Soldier was too highly trained to make that sort of mistake, so Steve hoped he would drop the gun and look for a better line of attack. That would be his opening.

Another zipped arrow near him reminded Steve that the Winter Soldier really was in charge now; that old set of protocols, the thing which had roamed outside in the blizzard in their shared dreams, stalking him, stalking the kernal of Bucky that Steve had sheltered there, carrying out the functions it had been trained to even when it was fruitless. Scans of Bucky made by Bruce, with Tony on hand, revealed that the arm was only part of the hatchet jobs done on his body; his spine was suffused with metal to give him the ability to support it and his right shoulder had a section of metal beneath it that functioned more or less as a counterweight to his left arm. They'd also found tendrils of wiring extending around his spine and right up into a small attachment on his frontal lobe, the pupose of which was not clear since there was no safe way to test it. Steve suspected the device had something to do with the mental training they'd put him through to make him respond to their commands like a dog, maybe reinforcing it so deeply that now, even now, Bucky was almost helpless against it.

The moment he got his shield, he took a calculated aim and threw it. Naturally, Bucky deflected it with his vibranium arm, sending it completely off course. The movement gave Steve just enough of an opening to leap at him and push him to the floor, the energy gun scuttling away out of his left hand and the prototype crossbow flying out of his right, his head cracking hard on the floor at the same itme.

"Come on Buck, it's me. Look at me," he pleaded as he tried to hold him down against his wriggling, "I love you, come back to me."

The metal fist pulled free and the hand clamped around his throat, cutting off his air supply. He could hear the plates shifting, delivering more and more strength. Amidst the pain he could feel that blooming despair again, slamming into his mind, a sudden burst of ice amidst warmth.

"P-please..." he heard Bucky's voice, saw a flash of wide blue eyes through the blur of water his own were producing, knew that the man behind the hand, the soldier, was fighting it.

Steve did everything he could to push images and thoughts into Bucky's mind, of the love and passion they'd shared, of all the plans and hopes they had, trying to give him added strength. But he could feel the veins in his eyes popping and his trachea felt like it was on the verge of being crushed and he simply couldn't prize himself out of that iron grip.

There was a sudden boom, close enough to make his ears ring, and Steve lost all sense of up or down. He only realised he was free when he was on the floor somewhere, coughing like his life depended on it, his throat opening up again like a hot ball of agony. The unmistakable hard sounds of a fight were flaring up nearby and he knew he had to get up and get to Bucky somehow.

The hard sound of metal clanged and Steve saw the vague flash of Bucky rolling between counters, avoiding blasts from the hand of Stark's Iron Man suit.

_"Nnnno don't hurt him,"_ he tried to cry out but his throat made no sound.

Suddenly arrows were flying and one smashed straight into Tony's side. In the moment of recoil, Bucky leapt at him and the Iron suit's offensive hand was ripped off, disarming him. Bucky's metal hand the went straight through the face of his helmet and then Stark landed in an unceremonious heap, the arrow still sticking out of his side. The Winter Soldier performed a graceful flip and then the energy weapon was back in his hand, aimed directly at Tony's head.

Steve tried to scream out a warning but his throat was too bruised, his voice reduced to a sad whisper. There was no way he could get to Bucky in time and Tony looked helpless in his broken suit, staring back with wide eyes.

"Protocol Sputnik!" Another voice rang out suddenly, loud and hysterical, and Steve snapped his head around to see Bruce in the doorway.

Bucky suddenly slumped like a puppet with its strings suddenly cut, body half folded in an unnatural position.

"Whoa! Good timing," Tony yelled.

Steve dragged himself across the floor to where his lover lay, limp, pulled him into his arms.

"What did you do?" he rasped at Bruce, still barely audible. "Oh God, Bucky?" He cradled him close, checking his pulse. It was there, weak but there. Steve was then shaking him, rocking him, needing him to be back.

"He just disarmed their godamned weapon," Tony growled and pulled his helmet off, crying out a little as Bruce knelt beside him to inspect the arrow in his side. "Oh man, I really wish I hadn't made those armour piercing arrows for Clint."

"Bruce you... you used a HYDRA protocol against him? _What?_ "

Bruce looked at him like he was going to respond with something, but instead dropped his head, guiltily. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Hey he saved my life, and yours - don't apologise to him Bruce." Tony glared at Steve, that same expression of contempt that he'd seen him throw at Bucky for the past few weeks returning in full force. "Of course we learned how to shut him down. Don't you fucking know what he is? He's a loaded gun just waiting to go off. He's HYDRA's favourite little puppet. _One of them._ "

Steve stared at him like he'd never seen Tony Stark before, utterly shocked by the venom pouring from his lips. "I don't believe what I'm hearing. Why the hell..."

"He killed my parents you know," Tony said, and cried out as his movement of sliding his breastplate off jostled the arrow. "In cold blood. Staged it, made it look like a car accident. Looked me dead in the eyes and walked away from me, a five year old kid. Left me in the back seat with my parents brains all over the dash. No one believed what I saw. I even started to disbelieve it."

"Tony," Bruce said, quietly, gently trying to calm him.

"That wasn't Bucky and you know it." Steve's voice was incredibly hoarse but he had to defend him.

"The sputnik code was encrypted inside a data chip in his arm. We told him about it," Bruce told him.

"Right. And _he_ told us use it if this happened, so don't give me that look. He knew better than you just what he was capable of."

Steve couldn't breathe. He wrapped himself around Bucky's prone form, pressing his cheek to his friend's forehead, distraught at the lack of response. "Will he wake up?" he croaked.

There was no response so he looked aside at Tony. Pain must have registered in his eyes, because Tony had the grace to look away and not look at him, the same way Bruce was now avoiding his eyes.

"You didn't have to do this. We could have stopped him... helped him."

There was no time to debate. The lights suddenly powered back, casting everything into a completely different glow.

"Finally," Tony gasped. "Hey JARVIS, you with me?"

"Sir," came the desired response, without a hint of crackle this time.

"Power up my medilab. I'm gonna need some drugs. Lots of drugs." Tony struggled to his feet, Bruce trying to bear his weight, the remaining pieces of his suit peeling away. "Just... come on," he said, quietly, pulling Steve out of his shocked stupor. "Bring the dead weight. Don't have much time."

"Before what?" Steve snapped.

In the absence of a response from Tony, Bruce responded, reluctantly. "It's a killswitch. But, we can keep him going until we've fixed this."

Though he went straight onto autopilot, Steve wasn't slow to follow them down to the lab which was normally Bruce's domain. Steve was pushed back to stand at a distance while Bruce efficiently strapped Bucky down to a bed and attached a heart monitor to him. He then got down to the business of wrapping a tourniquet of sorts around Tony's middle to stem the bleeding around the stubs of the arrow.

All too soon the monitor began to beep at them, urgently. Bucky's vitals were falling off a cliff and Steve could do nothing but watch helplessly as Bruce shocked him back to life and injected a stream of drugs into him to get his heart going. He then hooked him up to a ventilator and attached a fluid bag and various extra monitors to his body, pausing only to assure Steve that he would be fine, for now at least.

While Bruce moved aside to see to Tony's injuries again, Steve held onto Bucky's hand and leaned over him, breathing him in, glassy-eyed with grief. "I need... to go to sleep," he said and rushed away without explaining any further.

He had to find Bucky in the shared dream world and speak to him, check he was really alright. He needed to touch him desperately and wrap him up in his arms.

Getting to sleep was, unfortunately, an impossible task. The adrenalin rush was doing circuits around his body and stubbornly refusing him that escape he needed. He tossed and turned for hours, then went up to the Star Gallery Suite to fling himself onto the cushions there.

Finally, he went under and returned to that strange world that been everything from a home to a refuge to a prison to him across the decades. Steve came to beside the large fountain that had been installed a while ago, based on something Bucky had seen once in Barcelona a long time ago. As he stared at it, he realised, all of the female waternymphs that were carved as the centrepiece looked like the woman from Bucky's memory, the _star_. He'd just never noticed before. It made him ache for some reason.

He turned and made a beeline for their apartment, feeling certain that if Bucky would be anywhere right now, it would be there, where they had always been safe and together one way or another.

He turned a corner onto the Brooklyn-based street where it existed and was stopped in his tracks at the sight of the enormous black hole that had taken up the space where it used to be, like it had been violently ripped out, reality curling at its edges like thin paper. Steve's heart jumped into his throat as he approached, hardly able to believe what he was seeing.

For over seventy years, that apartment building had stood strong for both of them. Even when it had been embedded inside a HYDRA base, assaulted by a firey apocalypse, and even when it had fallen into disrepair, abandoned to the blizzard and torn apart by the confusion of the Winter Soldier, it had been fixable. It hadn't gone away.

Steve spun around, desperately hoping to see Bucky somewhere nearby, hoping for an explanation of what he was seeing.

But he was completely alone there and that was the probelm. Bucky wasn't dreaming, wherever he was, he was just... switched off. Gone. The apartment had been Bucky's first creation there; an act of desperation during his first brush with the not so tender Dr Zola. Steve slumped to his knees at the thought of it being gone forever, of _Bucky_ being gone.

He found himself wandering the streets for what felt like forever, checking in and around all the hotpotched together monuments and places there, hoping against hope to find some sign of Bucky's presence. Steve tried to reason that Bucky might be confused, hiding somewhere. He might have regressed to the Winter Soldier again, watching him without recognition, waiting for him to be in a good position to take a shot at him.

When Steve woke up hours later, his cheeks were damp and cold. He whimpered and shuddered, caught between the desire to go back and check again and the need to run downstairs immediately to make sure Bucky was still alive physically.

"Hey soldier," a voice startled him and Steve instinctively pulled the sheets closer around his body. He breathed a deep sigh of relief on seeing a familiar head of red hair.

Natasha Romanov had an arm strapped up against her chest and some nasty cuts and bruises on display, but the smile on her face told him she was okay. She was sat on a stool near the door, apparently watching over him, half in shadow and half in light.

"You made it out," he said, honestly glad to see her.

"Did you even doubt it?" Natasha strode over and offered him a hand to pull him up to his feet.

He took the help but clung onto the sheets, feeling a little modest in just his boxers. Steve went over to where he'd discarded his shirt and pants the night before, not even folded; a testimony to the level of shock he had been in. "Um, turn around please."

The look she gave him was filled with mischief and she made a real show of doing as he asked, smirk out of all control.

"Fill me in. What went down?" he asked as he pulled on his clothes.

"Sure. Fury re-established contact out of the blue. Didn't say why, or how he'd been tracking me, so I hacked his files to find out. Naturally."

"Naturally."

"Long story short, I hear he lost his star pupil." Though Steve couldn't see her face, he could practically hear her eyebrows wiggling at her own description. "In reaching out to me for a little freelance help to finish the job, he put himself out there. HYDRA picked up his trail and launched a covert cyber attack. They did a real number on his confidential files."

"Let me guess, you cracking your way in first didn't help."

"Maybe, maybe not."

Now properly clothed, Steve turned and yelped a little as Natasha pulled him close under the pretext of grabbing the sheet out of his hands. "What were they after?" he said, trying to keep his voice even, knowing she was just messing with him for his inability to drop some of his old fashioned manners.

"Take a guess," she said, and a little note of sadness briefly touched her face. "Certain codes and protocols. The ones hacked out of Pierce's private files." Natasha paused to let him piece together the meaning of her words, watching for his reaction of concern. "Now why would HYDRA have to go raid Nick Fury's computers to find out their own codes, you ask? Good question Steve. Well, seems like the rats have scattered alright but they're forming factions..."

"And whoever has the Winter Soldier on board gets to claim status as the real HYDRA."

The Widow gave him a slightly patronising nod of approval, as if to imply that she was impressed he had half a brain enough to figure that out. "At a guess. Now, onto the interesting part... We should walk and talk, the guys are waiting for you down in the medilab."

Steve's heart actually lurched as though it skipped a beat. "Is Bucky...?"

"Relax Steve, the deadly assassin you brought home like a lost puppy is still on timeout. Clint helped me out with an extraction after the raid, so we headed over together on Tony's signal. Thor's back too. Avengers officially assembled."

They entered the elevator and Steve punched in the floor number. "You said there was an interesting part?"

"Tony and Bruce filled me in on what went down here. They said Alexander Pierce put in an appearance from beyond the grave?"

Steve nodded. He had a strong urge to press his forehead against the cold glass and close his eyes, just for a moment, but pushed it down. This was no time to check out.

"Remember my one of a kind amazing facial displacement holographic projector? Yeah, they tore my bunker up to find it. I didn't get why until I saw that video."

"Of course. Whoever this would-be new King Rat is, he raided Fury's files and figured out that the way to reactivate the Winter Soldier was to pretend to be Pierce." At least that explained why the voice he'd heard hadn't been quite right - it had been familiar, somehow, but definitely not because it belonged to Alexander Pierce. "It must have been someone who knew him."

The elevator whooshed to a halt and the doors slid open. "Can't deny, their play was pretty effective. If Bruce hadn't shut him down, he'd be marching home to the Motherland by now." Natasha said, and strode ahead toward the medibay.

Steve took a moment to steel himself before following her out. The bay itself was set up inside a glass cubical in the corner of a larger open plan laboratory which went across two levels, so they had to go down some steps to get to the right area. Tony and Bruce were across the floor behind a console, apparently discussing something, while Clint and Thor appeared to be catching up over some coffee from the kitchen. On their arrival, all four of them stopped speaking abruptly, staring.

There was only a moment for him to be alone the medibay, with Bucky, Natasha holding herself back at the door to give him that privacy. He didn't know what to do exactly, feeling oddly adrift in the situation. His team's eyes, all not too subtly on him, were prickly over his skin. Steve wanted to throw himself over Bucky and plead with him to come back, but instead all he could do was lean in just close enough to brush his fingers over Bucky's knuckes momentarily, before pulling back, heart quietly breaking.

Then Natasha stepped inside, followed closely by Bruce. He looked like he had lost a bet with Tony to be the one to come inside, about as uncomfortable as Steve had ever seen him. "We made a call to Dr Helen Cho. She's the best neuroscientist there is and she's an expert in medical technology," he said, quietly, with a note of chastised caution in his voice. "She's on a plane here from South Korea. If anyone can help, she can."

"At a dead end already?" Steve couldn't help but sound a little bitter. "You've been poking around in our brains for weeks. You must have found something helpful."

"I've done every scan I can think of and I'm getting no brainwave activity at all." Bruce stepped a little closer, his professional curiosity apparenlty winning out over his fear of the Captain's wrath. "Are you sensing anything from him?"

Steve reluctantly swallowed hard and shook his head.

"I ah... I took a nap..." Bruce started.

"He's not there either." He didn't mean to snap, he was just hanging by a nerve. And Steve could see Natasha looking between them but she didn't seem curious about the conversation. She was hanging back silently, arms crossed over her chest, merely watching them without expression. He guessed there had been something of a debriefing on that part of the story before he'd arrived

Bruce nodded slowly and adjusted his glasses, movements awkward. "I am, um, really sorry I..."

"Let me know when Dr Cho arrives," Steve cut him off. He was about to turn to leave, to go somewhere where the others wouldn't see him, but a rush of annoyance hit him. Because, Bucky wouldn't hide what they were to each other, no matter who was watching. He deserved better than that from Steve; and the thought made him feel bolder than normal. So Steve put his hand on Bucky's forehead to sweep back his hair, leaned over him resolutely and kissed his forehead tenderly, lingering so long his vision blurred with the tears that were fighting to get out.

He resolutely avoided looking at either Bruce or Natasha as he left the medilab.

Steve didn't make it far. "My friend," Thor said, stepping between him and the corridor he sought to escape into, "it saddens me to bear witness your grief. Have no fear, I will give my life to protect this warrior from those who would take him from you. This I swear."

"Thank you Thor," Steve replied, and patted him on the shoulder, anger dissipating, disarmed by the sincerity of his words. "I appreciate it."

"Your union has bestowed a great gift upon you," he continued. "We call it seiðr in my lands. It is a most powerful magic, to allow your soul to transcend to the otherworld in trance and to be entwined with another. On Asgard it is extremely rare for men to master this power."

Steve realised he hadn't blinked for a while, slightly confused by Thor's words. "I'm not sure it's the same thing."

"I have known only sorceresses with the art... oh but it is a _sweet_ art." A sly smile, oddly lecherous, touched his features and confused Steve even more. Thor frowned on seeing this. "Please do not be offended by my words. I wish only to impart my understanding, as a brother."

Lost for words, Steve responded with the warmest smile he could manage, though it barely touched the rest of his features. He then continued on around Thor, not really even sure where he was going, overwhelmed by the situation he had found himself in.

As he reached the elevator a little way along, a sudden thought struck him, hard as a bullet. "Thor," he called, urgently hurrying back. "I need to ask you something. I don't know if it's important or not, but... Actually, it would be easier if I showed you."

Thor followed him easily, as if he was more than happy to be there, though privately Steve wondered about Jane and felt a spike of guilt at his friend being pulled away from his vacation for guard duty. Honestly, Steve couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so out of control, so many emotions swirling like a whirlpool inside him. It occured that he'd gotten incredibly used to Bucky being there, a strong presence in his mind, like a touchstone. Even though he had always considered that Bucky was the one with the mood swings, the emotional fallout from his time as HYDRA's favourite prisoner, Steve realised that he was actually the one who was lost without Bucky there.

"I had a sort of, I don't know, memory sharing moment about something that happened when Bucky and I were young. He told me he met a woman who didn't seem human. It's hard to explain, but it was like she was made of light in the memory I saw. She came from the sky... I don't know how else to describe it. I hoped you might have an idea." Steve led Thor into his private quarters and dug his sketchbook out of his drawer. "I tried to draw her."

He passed it over to the Asgardian god and watched his face carefully as he looked at the sketch Steve had made and coloured in; the orange eyes, the wispy blonde hair, the star pendant, her reaching hand.

Now it was Thor's turn to look confused and somewhat taken aback. "I know her - _knew_ her," he said, voice uncharacteristically quiet.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve hadn't managed to tease a great deal from Thor about who this mysterious woman was. He called her _Gróa_ \- said she was a powerful seer and a sorceress, a master of the seiðr he spoke of before, who had seen fit to aid Thor after a battle he was gravely injured in. Steve deduced that they may have shared an initimate connection at the time, though it wasn't elaborated on and Steve didn't see fit to pry on the subject. The last Thor knew, Gróa had left Asgard on a quest to find her missing husband, Aurvandil, _the star_. He said that had been some time ago and he'd heard nothing of her since.

Thor had returned to Asgard and sought her out on Steve's behalf, using all his connections to do so and apparently pleading his case to this woman who was very powerful, and so feared by many. Only as a god did he dare seek her out, when others did not.

Though he hated, _hated_ to leave Bucky, Steve saw no other option to pursue the lead, reasoning that there was a chance this mysterious Asgardian who had taken an interest in Bucky's life once before might do so again. Had it been possible to take Bucky with him to Asgard, it might have solved the immediate problem of HYDRA trying to pull him back into the fold, but he was warned that it would be too dangerous to move him to another building, let alone to another world. He'd flatlined again once already and had had to been electro-shocked back to life. There was simply no option but to leave him behind and to trust the rest of the Avengers to protect him and keep him alive until his return. 

Steve and Thor journeyed together across a dust plain outside of Asgard's capital city, across to an solitary palacial outpost, its entrance sitting beneath an enormous green monument which resembled a huge all-seeing eye. Inside, the walls were a mix of lush green fabrics swaying in the breeze and precious gems with settings of gold; just as opulent as the city itself, if not more so.

He followed Thor through a hall and several rooms, coming to a set of cloisters around an open air section housing a beautiful garden that looked like an artificially created oasys, given the desert landscape outside. There, swaying gently, was a figure in a bundle of fabric, laying in a hammock, a bare white female leg hanging over the side, the tips of her toes touching the murky water of the circular pond at the heart of the garden, causing gentle ripples.

Thor kneeled as they came near to her and Steve copied him.

"My sweet Thor," she said, her voice gentle but grand, like the sound of the wind itself was invocated within it. A slender hand reached out from the hammock and Thor went to retrieve it. She slowly unfurled herself, revealing herself as a tall, strange woman in a tangle of golden fabrics, long blonde hair falling about her, eyes just as orange and striking as he'd seen before, that glowing pendant still hanging around her neck.

Steve held his breath as she approached him, tiny sparkles of light fluttering around her, feet bare and pale, and watched her let go of Thor to reach for him. She smiled at him exactly as she had at Bucky once, according to his glimpse of that old memory. "Steven Rogers of Midgard," she greeted him.

"Ma'am," he responded, without really thinking.

His wincing reaction to his own words made Thor grin and Gróa laugh, all tension at the situation flowing away in that melodious sound.

"I saw that we would meet some years ago," she told him. "Please, sit with me." She gestured to some soft cushions set aside the circular pool, making herself home on one and indicating for Steve to do the same beside her. Thor hung back, watching closely, staying perfectly silent.

"I need to know... how, I mean, what, I mean...?" he spluttered, not knowing where to even begin.

"I did your friend a service in exchange for a service given to me."

"What service?"

"I have a sense for the fates of those who may alter the very course of the stars one day. I saw you, Steven Rogers of Midgard," she told him, her voice lulling and almost hypnotic, her fingers brushing the surface of the waters idly. "His fate is only remarkable in that it was always entwined with _yours_. I was drawn to him as the shadow piece of _your_ soul."

Steve saw, with a start, that what he had thought was her reflection in the water was not her; there was another woman there, mirroring her, brushing fingers back, though her face was more green and appeared quite monsterous, her teeth sharp and predatory. In fact, there were two more women there as well, writhing in and out of sight in the dark pool, their three bodies long and scaly like octopus legs.

"The wish that he made to me, a simple thing, I saw that it would change the fate of all the Nine Worlds. The ripple it caused saved many lives, including Thor's. And my husband's. Even mine." She smiled at the memory, either unaware of or uncaring of the dark concern settling over Steve's features. "One small change to this one child's destiny and I saw that I could save the whole universe from a fate none would choose. Tell me, what would you have done?"

Steve shook his head, trying to understand and, honestly, failing. "He said you gave him my pain."

"As was his wish," Gróa's eyes flashed orange and intense, "but it grew beyond that simple want. For his love of you, he bore the sorrow of billions."

"I still don't understand."

She rested a hand on his and he could practically feel the hum of power beneath her skin. "Thor has explained his present ailment to me. I may give you the means to aid him, but first you _must_ understand his sacrifice. You must accept it."

A flutter of concern stopped his heart for a moment. "I... I don't..."

"I grant you this boon of aid with one price," she said, and Steve noticed that the light around them seemed to be dimming, casting the garden into flickering shadows tempered by dancing flashes of magic like dust sparking on fire. "Within this pool lie the Nornir, the three maidens of fate. They will show you what would have been had his wish never been granted. When the vision wanes, you may choose. Let the wish stand, or change the tides of fate to their original course."

"Wait... I could save him from HYDRA?" The very idea of his caused a burst of adrenalin so strong, Steve leapt to his feet, breathing heavily. "I could take it all away from him?" It was as if an explosion had gone off behind his eyes, sending his thoughts into a whirl of excitement. He knew that there was nothing in the world he wouldn't do to take those decades of torment away, to give Bucky the life he had really deserved, no matter how much it might pain Steve to perhaps lose him again in doing so. Knowing that the pain was never meant to be Bucky's in the first place only made that determination twice as strong.

"It is not wise to play lightly with the strings of fate," Thor warned, stepping forward with urgency, gripping his arm to shake him from hjis thoughts. "This is... a dangerous boon." He shot a glare at Gróa, who seemed suddenly a great deal more sinister than she had before, green wisps of magic currents floating about her, though she appeared entirely unmoved. "I know not what trickery might befall you but you cannot be certain that what she offers is truth. I would not see you harmed."

Much as Steve respected Thor in every possible way, he knew there was simply no way he could refuse her, hang the consequences. She was offering him not one but two ways to save Bucky and Steve had no reservations whatsoever in taking her hand and agreeing to do whatever she asked.

Gróa smiled at him, sweetly, and kissed his hand. "Choose well young one," she told him and then pushed him over.

Steve crashed into the water and immediately felt himself being dragged downwards, into the darkness, through the writhing tentacle limbs and claws and snapping teeth of the Nornir, everything spinning and pulling at him, down down down, his skin flying away and the light inside him being pulled out, swallowed whole, his mind dragged through a pinpoint needlehead and out the other side, down down down, until...

...  
...

"Wait... you know what you're doing?" Gabe Jones stepped forward from behind Monty and Dum Dum, his voice tense with concern at the escape plan drawn up by, well, a mere poster boy. 

"Yeah. I've knocked out Adolf Hitler over two hundred times," he deadpanned, and he ran off before explaining further, knowing he had to do something important.

Steve felt rattled, unsteady, an odd sense of deja vu bouncing around his mind as he ran through the corridors. They looked a lot like the corridors he found himself so often trapped in when he was dreaming, all routes leading to the strange man with the red face. But it wasn't just that; he felt odd, out of place, though he couldn't remember exactly why that might be.

He pushed all his concerns aside, focusing on the most important thing. _Bucky_. He had to find him. Blood was rushing in his ears, his whole body gripped with the fear of not knowing if his friend was dead or alive. He followed the dark winding corridors, following a blueprint half glimpsed in his mind, going instinctively towards where their Brooklyn apartment was to be found, at least in his dreams.

There was a voice somewhere nearby, dim and vague, one he might have missed without the gift of his superior hearing. He turned into a corridor and saw a figure at the end of it, short and stout, a briefcase in hand. Dr Zola was fleeing. Steve hurried into the room Zola had run from, following the sound of someone speaking.

He immediately had to cover his mouth, the copper smell of blood and bile overwhelming.

"Ze regenerative properties of Subject 17 proved resilient to level three," the voice said. He had stumbled into a room with a projection reel playing on the wall at the far end, a single red chair set before, glass of something placed on a table beside it for an audience of one to watch a private show. "Ze progress vas most promising."

There was a medical table surrounded by strange bits of equipment and tables with rusty old tools on them beside scribbled notes. The still figure of a man was strapped down to it, the drip drip of blood rolling down the sides and onto the floor deafening. He felt his legs go out from beneath him as he approached and saw that it was Bucky lying there, eyes open but empty.

"Unfortunately test stage level four proved fatal. A new subject for the procedure is therefore now required. However, 17 has proven most valuable in refining ze formula."

The flickering newsreel images over which Zola had recorded his observations showed Steve all the things he never wanted to see; Bucky's final agonising moments, those deadly injuries coldly inflicted by the hands of HYDRA scientists for their impartial observation.

Steve curled into himself and threw up all down his front. His mind switched off the moment the projector reel flickered to a close, leaving only static and white noise. At some point, he pulled Bucky free of the straps and pulled him into his arms, sitting on the floor with his body held close, shaking because he still felt impossibly warm. Steve couldn't register anything except the horrifying awful certainty that he had failed; even when he'd had nothing, he'd had Bucky, but for all his superhuman abilities he hadn't been able to rescue his friend.

It had all been for nothing. The serum, Dr Erkine's death, his desperate rescue attempt, all of it. He had failed.

The drifting sound of shouting and explosions came in from outside. The 107th were doing what he'd asked and getting the hell out and he mentally hoped that some of them made it, at the very least. Dr Zola was retreating too, which meant that Schmidt too would be leaving. He thought about the prospect of a self destruct being set off, since there was no way they would want the base falling into allied hands, and Steve felt at peace with the idea.

Captain America was just an idea they'd put out there to help the war effort. He was never a real hero; couldn't even save his best friend. Despite all the blood, the dirt scent of sweat and tears lingering, Bucky smelled like home somehow, and all thoughts of being anything more than that scrawney little kid from Brooklyn flew away from him.

There was no time to run anyway.

So Steve waited with Bucky, silently telling him to wait for him in the afterlife, he was coming to find him. It was only a few minutes before he heard the telltale rumbles of massive explosions sparking up all around them, closing in.

He didn't flinch as the walls and the ceiling caved in around him, fire bursting in eagerly. It was all over in a flash anyway.

The time that followed was a strange blur. Some essential part of Steve Rogers was gone and he felt like a pretender, empty and tired. In the nightmare corridors of his dreams, he wandered through the fire, looking but never finding the door to the apartment refuge, like a ghost without purpose.

When he started waking up again, it was to nothing but pain. He was told he had been pulled from the wreckage, skin burned to a crisp, that he was to be healed and perfected and put to glorious service. The endless injections made him delirious and the tests they began to subject him to were agonising. 

"You are to be my right hand, Kapitan," he heard the man with the red face say once, as he was torn apart by scalpels and his bones reinforced with cold hard shapes of metal. "Ze Ubermensch!"

In his dreams, he lost the strength to fight the faceless army of HYDRA soldiers who came in waves to find him, endlessly, remorselessy. There was no refuge from them now. He let them drag him to the central core where the red faced man - Johann Schmidt, though he looked more normal, more human in waking hours - gave him lectures on the world that was to be. He was tired, drained. The fight was starting to leave him. He'd been too late to save Bucky after all; why on earth would he be able to make a difference to anything now?

Steve was placed inside a newly installed cube made of bars in the dream space. It overlooked the central lair, lightly swaying, where the sound of that awful Wagner opera was always present. Schmidt also conjured a large screen into being, like an enormous television also hanging in the air, positioned just so to allow him to watch what was on the screen.

They began to break him down with physical tortures in his waking hours, flaying his flesh and burning the wounds to watch him heal, but it was nothing on what he was given to watch on that screen; the recapture and execution of the prisoners from the 107th who had escaped the compound he'd tried to liberate, the remorseless advance of HYDRA across Europe as Schmidt turned on Hitler and absorbed the SS into his own ranks.

The weaker Steve grew, the stronger Schmidt became. The mental connection they shared assaulted him like tentacles growing around his brain, allowing the insane HYDRA leader to control Steve more and more, putting him in a daze while his body moved of its own accord in the real world. Like a parasite, he drew on Steve to increase his own psychic capabilities, becoming more and more able to put others under his spell. Resistance countermeasures in every nation were decimated when the man they called the Red Skull gained the ability to turn their own leaders into HYDRA agents, ready to do his bidding.

Steve became a poster boy again. He was given a uniform designed to look much like the outfit he wore as Captain America as an insult, only with the HYDRA imagery and colours in place of the patriotic flag he had worn before. _Kapitan Ubermench_ they called him, the posters sent far and wide, to every corner of the world. _Ihr Kapitän befiehlt euch, die glorreiche Revolution anzuschließen! HAIL HYDRA!_ they proclaimed beneath his stern unsmiling image.

He lost track of where the Red Skull ended and where he began; could no longer tell if he was the one lashing out when prisoners were captured or if his hands were being controlled. In their shared dreams, he rattled at his cage and wept at the images on the screen, of all the people being consumed by the fire and bombs sent out by the Red Skull to create his perfect world. But his body was weak again there, as if the serum had been drained away from him. He was getting smaller and smaller.

When the Red Skull began to experiment with the odd glowing cube he called the Tesseract, he once again drew on Steve's strength, draining him mentally in order to gain some sort of clearer vision from the powerful artefact which had eluded his use before. It whispered to him now, when before it had been silent. He began to speak of Infinity Stones, the objects he had always believed left by the gods for those worthy of their greatness, and of how the power was now his to take.

Schmidt soon deciphered the location of another of the stones, held in a staff held in Odin's palace on Asgard. The Tesseract finally yielded to the Red Skull, granting him the power to actually traverse the universe with ease. He immediately took possession of the Mind Stone, killing all who dared stand against him with ease, including the King himself, his wife, and his two young sons.

While Kapitan Ubermensch kept watch over Earth by day, and Steve wept in the dream prison created for him by night, Schmidt used his magnified mental powers and the Mind Stone to conquer every world he went to, sparking wars and killing all who fought against him. The second Infinity Stone increased the magnitude of the Red Skull's abilities to destroy and control the minds of others a hundred fold. Whole nations began to sing his praises and embrace their ruler and his motto of Order Through Pain. HYDRA was simply unstoppable.

Steve was able to watch it all happening through the screen in his mental prison; the actions of the Red Skull, the actions of the Kapitan, both views blurring into one long nightmare of red blood and fire. Kapitan Ubermench was lost against the second stone's power to control minds, that small part of Steve that was kept for the Red Skull's amusement fading more with every day.

Through the dimness of his powerless trance, he saw when Peggy Carter and the best troops of the British SAS came to mount a final defence, her face as beautiful as he remembered on the screen. He saw himself, his own hands, destroying them all without compassion. Even Peggy.

He hurt her the worst.

And Steve Rogers, the boy who'd loved his best friend and wanted nothing more than to serve his country, faded away to nothing.

The Infinity Stones continued to be unearthed, one by one, falling into Schmidt's hands easily.

The tentacles of HYDRA expanded and expanded and Kapitan Ubermench watched it happen, dispassionately, from his red throne, placed just so over one of the burning cities where the workers of earth existed in fear and poverty, their lives devoted to building weapons and ships for the glory of the order.

"This is the pain that child spared you," a voice in the ether told him at last, "spared us all."

A single tear rolled down the stone face of the Kapitan. A heart which had been unmoved for years ached again at last, something waking up inside him.

"Was I wrong to grant his wish?"

"No," he told her, at last. "You were not wrong."

The fire that was his world, the only world he knew at last began to abate before him. The reality he had known to exist before it started to break through, water pouring through the cracks and all around him, washing the Kapitan and the fires away.

Claws and tentacles dragged him upwards, back through a murky darkness he had forgotten about, all the years of confusion peeling away from him in layers. A strong arm wrapped around him and he was lifted straight out of the water and onto the side of the pool, coughing and spluttering the dregs of it out of his lungs.

Thor kept him in place, looming large over him, frowning as Steve turned his face to one side and let out some hysterical sobs. He felt raw and hollow, the memory of that terrible world he had presided over still mercilessly sharp in places, even if it had grown strangely vague and dim with his resurgence. The image of Bucky dead on that table, of Peggy under his boots, of so many others murdered and maimed before him, they wouldn't be washed away easily. He felt... dirty. Sick.

Gróa was standing at the edge of the garden, looking out through a tunnel leading to the back of the palace structure where the sands were swirling. Her golden robes were billowing in the air and her features, when she turned, were filled with sadness.

"I did it," he gasped and coughed, fighting to pull himself up to his feet, barely able to stand without the help of Thor. "I chose." Though he had been so certain that he would not waste a chance to save Bucky from his decades years of anguish, there was nothing about that hideous reality that was worth changing things for. It would have done Bucky a great disservice to choose otherwise; to wash what he did away.

"You did," she replied, evenly, and swept towards him. Her eyes were shining, as if she herself were moved and fighting against tears. "I do bear sorrow for that selfless child. I took no pleasure in dimming the light within him. That is why I have chosen to aid you now. I saw this outcome many moons ago."

The sorceress removed her pendant and held it aloft. She turned his hand, palm up, and let the light at the end fly off and into it. It slowly crystallised into a rough star shaped gem, like cut glass or diamond.

"My power of seiðr lies within. This will open the way to you so that you may guide him to wakefulness." Gróa kissed him, lightly, on the cheek. "I only ask that it is returned to me when he is restored."

Steve nodded. "You have my word."

"My Lord Thor," she said, turning, "return him to Midgard. The Nornir touch will leave him weary for some time. The reflections will torment if he does not rest and reflect."

"My Lady," Thor replied, bowing, before helping Steve to make the return trip through the palace on shaking legs.

Steve clutched the stone tightly and pressed his hand against his chest, both for extra security and to soothe his nerves. He had to believe it was the answer. "Th-thank you," he managed to say, teeth chattering, smiling weakly.

Gróa turned and swept back to her hammock without saying another word.

They took that as their queue to leave. Steve's body was still wracked with tremors during their return journey but nothing, not even a visibly concerned god of thunder, would keep him from his task now. And Steve was running inside the tower even before they'd properly made their landing on the tower's helipad.

He stopped only to throw up some of the murky water that had been swallowed in his ascent in a corner by a plant in one of the corridors, a freezeframe flash of Peggy's bruised face burning his retinas at the same time. Thor tried to slow him down, tell him that he should take his time and recover from the vision bestowed, but Steve wasn't listening.

The last time he recalled holding Bucky in his arms, he'd been dead. The feel of it, the stench of the blood, the overwhelming sense of hopelessness and despair, that had all come back with him, seered into his memory. Desperation had settled over him, thick and raw; and with it came the need to wipe away everything he'd seen and replace it with more immediate memories.

It was night in the lab, but Stark's tower never really slept. Someone somewhere was always awake, and that was still true while it was locked down, the Stark Industry employee offices at the base of it which normally bustled with activity all closed and quiet.

The medilab wasn't empty either, despite the late hour. Natasha and Tony appeared to be having a discussion, Tony sitting on the other bed on the opposite side of the lab to where Bucky lay, showing off the bandage around his torso. Clint was standing nearby, apparently listening to whatever was being said.

Had Steve been in a clearer state of mind, he might have held back and listened in before marching across the main floor of the lab, making a commotion in his haste to get to Bucky, Thor trailing behind him, arms outstretched to catch him should he fall over again like a father chasing a toddler. Whatever was being said in the medilab, the conversation was inevitably interrupted as Steve half fell inside.

Clint was nearest so he immediately moved to help him, but Steve pushed right past, shrugging the help off. He went across to Tony and waved vaguely at the bed he was seated on the end of.

"I need this bed," he groaned, like he was trying not to be sick again.

"I'll say," Tony agreed, sliding off it carefully. "You look like you've been to hell and back, Cap."

"Not far wrong." Steve stumbled over and then surprised everyone by wynching the entire bed up in the air with one hand, popping the bolts that had been securing it to the floor. Natasha had to scoot out of the way as he moved it, his usual levels of coordination absent in his effort to move it over to other side of the lab. Once he reached his destination, he dropped it down and pushed it next to Bucky's bed, as close as it could go.

"You wanna fill me in, big guy?" Tony asked, taking in the scene with incredulity.

"You found something," Natasha cut in, her eyes fixed on the closed hand Steve was still holding against his chest.

"He received a vision," Thor explained, quickly, looking more than a little annoyed, "and remains affected by it. Yet he will not heed the warnings given to rest with urgency."

"Oh I'll rest." Steve swung himself up onto the bed and shucked off his boots. "While I do, I'm going to go bring Bucky back." He tried to sound confident and assured but his head was pounding, his vision already swimming.

"Hold up, you should wait for Bruce and Dr Cho..." Natasha began, frowning at him, not unreasonably.

"There's no time," Steve yelled, too loudly. "Look, in case you hadn't noticed, he's braindead right now thanks to Bruce. I lost him for 70 years, I'm not losing him again."

There were no more arguments. The team stood back silently as he lay down and finally uncurled his arm from his chest. Light breached through the space between his fingers, the star pendant glowing brightly and pulsing with power.

It was like a gale had erupted inside the room, bits of paper flying around, Natasha's hair whipping around her face while the light spilled out of Steve's hand and grew steadily brighter.

"Uh Steve?" Tony yelled over the noise of the wind gathering. "Is this supposed to happen?"

Steve wasn't listening. He tilted his head toward Bucky and, pendant in hand, grasped their hands together, welcoming the explosion of energy that burst behind his eyes without fear.

In barely an instant, he was inside their familiar dreamscape, standing on the street before the dark void of space where their apartment was once to be found.

The sound of someone groaning behind him startled him and he span around.

"Holy bejeezus on wheels," Tony was muttering, holding his head, rolling to his knees on the concrete road. "What the hell just happened?"

Natasha, Thor and Clint all peered up from the ground where they had fallen, looking ashen faced.

There as a long moment of stunned silence, Steve starring at his teammates with complete astonishment.

"I guess we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto," Tony said, finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Kurayami for linking me to some dark!Cap images. These are kind of how I'd imagined the Kapitan more or less, so I thought I'd embed them here for others to see -  
>  [](http://tinypic.com?ref=mifls5)  
>   
>  [](http://tinypic.com?ref=2jb0ccp)  
> 


	4. Chapter 4

"Okay, is someone gong to explain this?" Clint demanded, finally, looking more dazed than any of them had seen him look before. " _What - the - hell_?"

"It appears we have been drawn into the Beyond Realm somehow," Thor said. He at least seemed to be holding himself together.

"I guess the pendant knocked you all out... drew you in here with me," Steve guessed, looking more than a little repentent. Now he was back in the dream realm, his mind was infinitely clearer and he could see that his actions had been more than a little, well, rash. "I'm sorry I... I didn't know that would happen."

"Bruce isn't here. Nor is Cho. Must be proximity related." Natasha was looking around, assessing the situation, replacing her initial shock with a well practiced determination to work through the problem and find a solution quickly.

"I have experienced this once before," Thor said, rather confirming Steve's suspicions about his previous time with Gróa. "The power does not linger long. I am certain we will all awaken in time without harm."

"Because I have nothing better to do than wander around Cap's wet dreamland," Tony whined.

"So this is the place Bruce was talking about?" Natasha continued, still assesing the situation. 

Steve nodded. He pointed out into the distance where the large green cloud was present, like a strange gaseous column on the periphery of their city. "That's his bit."

"Hey, is that Notre Dame over there?" Clint asked, pointing across at a slightly mashed together cathedral Bucky had installed, the top of it visible over the building that were nearer to them. As ever, he had the eyesight of, well, a hawk.

"Um, yes, I think so." He noticed that things didn't look quite as sharp as he remembered; the details of the buildings a little blurrier than he was used to. "Bucky put most of this place together."

"Interesting." Clint looked very thoughtful.

"Oh no kidding, the Buckster did all this?" Tony said, making a point of sounding seriously annoyed, his voice filled with mock politeness. "Including the charmingly scenic giant gaping hole of nothingness over there? Amazing."

Steve turned back to it, sadly, heart in his throat. "No... no our apartment is supposed to be there. I don't know why it isn't." He frowned, worriedly. "I don't understand. She said it would 'open the way' to let me find him. He's still not here."

His crestfallen manner moved Thor to step closer and to put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him. "Fear not, he may yet be here. Gróa has no cause to lie as to the purpose of this quest."

"No... the edges here are blurring. It's already starting to fade." He couldn't hide his agitation, hands clenching and unclenching, brow furrowed. "It doesn't feel right. Something's wrong, I just know it."

Natasha was peering into the empty hole, standing right at the edge between the street visage and the torn edge of it. "Hey," she said, and waved them over. "I hear something in there. Listen."

Clint was nearest but he stepped back to let Steve and Thor past since his hearing wasn't too good. Tony hung back as well, arms across his chest, while they listened in.

"Sounds like... someone screaming kind of..." Natasha decided, "but like, in a wind tunnel or through a grate." She shivered. "Can't be good."

Steve leapt back as if burned. "Oh god," he murmured, "it must be him. Out there somewhere..."

"Whoa there." Tony was pulling Steve back before he even moved, or thought to move. "I saw that twitch. Don't you even think about jumping in."

He hadn't been, but Steve was definitely thinking about it now. "Who says I'm going to..."

"Look, I'm just going to say it," Tony snapped back at him. "Ever since you brought your robot boyfriend to my Tower you've had blinders on. If you had just slowed the hell down earlier, waited until we knew what that thing in your hand would do, we wouldn't be standing here. You are _not_ leaving us hanging around here in Dreamsville while you go do something else stupid and reckless."

"Fine. I've got blinders on. That's what happens when you discover someone you care for has been a Prisoner of War for an entire godamned lifetime and it's _your_ fault," Steve snapped. "I owe him this. And just because you're holding a grudge over something he had no control over..."

"It's not about that..."

"Yes it's about that. You don't know what he's been through. I was there with him the whole way through. I watched them destroy him, over and over again from here. I couldn't help him then. So not you, not anybody can stop me from helping him now. You don't like him? Fine. _I don't care_. I'm _not_ losing him again!" Steve didn't realise that he'd been shouting until he stepped back and saw how the others were looking at him, captured in a long moment of stunned disbelief. Even Tony looked somewhat taken aback, his previous cockiness gone.

"Maybe we should go find Bruce if he's here," Clint suggested, lightly.

Steve was still glaring at Tony. "Fine. You can all do that. I'm going to find Bucky."

"Hold up Steve." Natasha stepped between him and his exit point, with all its distant screams and moans, pressing a hand on his chest to hold him back from it. "You don't know what's in there. Think about what that black hole down there must represent. We know he's not dreaming, or he'd be here. He's gone someplace further in. It doesn't sound like a happy place."

"All the more reason..."

"... Not to go alone," she finished his sentence for him, with a smile. "I happen to know a thing or two about not very happy places. If you're going, I'm coming too."

Clint stepped closer to her, protectively, apparently considering protesting. He could obviously tell that her mind was made up though. "I guess that means I'm in too," he sighed.

"I will also be glad to venture forth with you," Thor stated, boldly. "Our greater numbers will make the search easier."

Steve gave them each a grateful nod in turn, warmth pooling in his chest somewhere near the cavern which housed his love for Bucky, where everything felt that much more raw and real to him.

"Fine," Tony suddenly snapped in, "I'm in too." At Steve's look of obvious surprise, he continued, "You said I don't know what he went through. Maybe this is my chance to figure it out, right?" He still sounded a bit annoyed.

"You don't have to," Steve said, feeling cooler now that he had some support and an idea of where to go. "Someone needs to go find Bruce..."

"Let the big guy do that, he's knows more about whatever this whacky power that brought us here is than anyone else," Tony said. "Thor's got a better chance of giving him the right info. He should go."

Steve had to admit that he had a point. He looked to Thor. "That might be the best option I guess."

"I will do as you say," the god of thunder offered, without any hint of annoyance at being denied his chance to follow Steve onward. "However if you do not return with haste, I will make pursuit."

"Thanks."

With Natasha on his left and Clint on his right, Steve stood before the gaping void leading to wherever Bucky now languished. Tony slowly joined the line up and peered inside, looking less than enthusiastic.

"On three," Steve commanded. "One... two..."

"Here goes nothing," Clint muttered.

"Three."

Steve was falling, _again_ , the sensation unmistakable. He'd felt it too many times now, sometimes even willingly, knowing the difference between a controlled descent and the loss of all control and therefore knowing that this was the latter version.

This time his lungs were burning, as if something had scooped the breath right out of him and kept it from returning to him. He couldn't see anything, just blind acid tears and flecks of white. His body collided with something, pieces of him shattering in bursts of red as the rest of descent became a tumble of sharp hard somethings that meant to hurt him.

He had no real thoughts beyond the initial shock of cold that caught him at the bottom of wherever he was. Blinking, Steve saw rocks sliding down a sloping cliffside, darkly come to play with him. He could hear his voice moaning... but no. It wasn't right. None of it was right.

This wasn't his memory.

The flickering blinkering numbness had no sense of time as it creeped across him, and nor did he. He knew the snow was starting to bury him, knew he was melting in a freezing cold puddle of ice. But then there were parachutes and men landing all around him and then... pain, worse than a bullet, worse than a broken bone; the sensation of his flesh as meat, to be cut and sawed at, and Steve couldn't make his voice work to even scream about it.

This wasn't his memory. It wasn't.

But he was trapped in it all the same, being dragged away along ice, his arm reduced to nothing but a long line of red that stretched over the horizon, maybe for miles. Steve felt grey with shock but at least had the presence of mind to fight against the urge to sleep.

This wasn't his memory and he needed to break out of it.

He knew it logically. This was, of course, Bucky's experience. But he was experiencing some of the fear that came with it, like he was trapped behind a barrier, forced into a scenario he didn't belong inside. The pain was far more real than anything he'd felt in the dreamscape he was so used to and it was hard to push it to one side enough to focus.

Steve had to fight, the way he did all those years ago when big guys would punch him in the jaw or kick him in the stomach and he had no choice but to push through and stand up for himself, even if it was just to show Bucky that he could have taken them down alone if he'd been given a chance. He had to reach into that place inside himself that never failed him; the piece of Steve Rogers which gave him the strength to withstand the vita-rays and the serum which turned him into the Captain, in order to force his way past the memory that he didn't belong inside.

At some point, he had been taken inside somewhere, strapped down to a table. When he came to enough to see, he decided that it looked like an old fashioned laboratory, men in medical masks all over the place. Time was bucking like a lock being forced open, making it hard to keep track of what was going on. Steve knew he had to shut it out of his mind and force the pain away.

Like ice cracking along his skin, Steve broke free of what was happening bit by bit, snapping the restraints and kicking out, attacking the Russian doctors and making it count, even though he still only had one arm. He told himself that the injections they tried to slam into his body were not real, couldn't work, and that seemed to render them useless. The uniformed guards who ran in were also swiftly knocked down, but in a blink, they were all gone, as if their bodies had been made only of wisps of breath, all now exhaled.

Steve caught sight of himself in a large dirty mirror that was serving as a two-way looking glass. He was still himself, though a pale and haunted version, dressed in torn up and bloodied versions of Bucky's distinctive blue Army jacket and grey pants. The glass wasn't perfectly clear and he could see something moving behind it, like a figure emerging from a rolling mist. Mesmerised, he stepped closer, trying to make it out.

The moment he saw the image come together, he gasped. "Bucky," he said, seeing the man he'd known when they'd lived in Brooklyn, in shiny shoes and a cheaply made suit, his hair slicked back, all so familiar except for his eyes; they alone told the true story of his age and suffering. There was no door to run through, so Steve used his remaining hand to smash the mirror.

But what appeared on the other side of the glass was not what he had expected to see. The gap led outside, into the heart of a small village of huts surrounded by well trodden mud and foreboding old trees. The rain was falling heavily, in thick drops that smothered him the moment he leapt through the hole and into the scene.

The night air was filled with the sound of bullets and cries and he instinctively ran forward, clumsy in the mud. Steve quickly tripped, his eyes filled with the cold rainwater, and he tumbled over. When he looked up from the mud, he gasped to see the dead staring eyes of a young girl, no more than thirteen or fourteen, lying on the ground in front of him, a bullet hole in her head. Another dead girl lay next to her, pigtails dirtied with the blood.

This had to be another memory, but it was not one he recognised; not even one he had imagined in his worst nightmares.

He could hear the dull thuds and smacks of a fight happening somewhere nearby. Steve struggled to get back up with only one arm to support himself and the mud trying to suck him down again, just about managing to break into a clumsy run in the direction of the noise.

At first he thought he was seeing Bucky as the Winter Soldier fighting in hand to hand combat with another girl, but as he drew closer, he realised the person wearing the distinctive suit, metal arm gleaming and repelling the heavy raindrops with a noisy clatter, was not Bucky. It was Natasha.

She was fighting just like him though, beating down on another young redheaded girl who was darting back and forth to dodge the swipe of her knife, her dress torn in the places she hadn't been fast enough to avoid a cut, and who inevitably caught a punch from the metal fist to the face after slipping a little in the mud. Natasha pinned the kid down between her legs, stopping her from struggling, raising the knife high, about to plunge it down into her chest.

"No!" Steve yelled and pushed Natasha off the girl, holding his friend down with his remaining arm as she fought to get free of him like a wild thing. "Natasha, stop it. It's me! It's Steve!"

Abruptly, she stopped fighting him and stared with wide eyes. Steve smiled with relief, but then realised that she wasn't looking at him, she was looking past him. He turned, releasing his hold a little, and looked at the girl she had been fighting kneeling over another; a little brunette lying dead in the mud.

Steve stopped breathing when he saw that the young girl was also Natasha, a teenaged version, her red hair pulled back into a ponytail, her simple school uniform ruined by the mud and the knife slashes that were painfully dotted around her body.

"She... was my friend. M-my only friend," Natasha said.

"What's going on here? What is all this?" Steve asked.

"Test. They air dropped us all here the year before graduation, let him come to kill us," she gasped, visibly shaking. "We had to s-survive for thirty minutes. Only thirty minutes. N-no way out... electric fences, mines. He got nine of us. Galina... Бля I haven't thought about her in years."

Natasha looked down at herself, frowning with confusion at the metal arm, then stared at Steve with even more concern. "Your arm..."

"We're caught up in Bucky's memories I guess. I got the no-arm one," he said, making light of it for her benefit.

"I felt... felt like I hated every second of this... _he_ hated doing this... Never thought..."

Steve nodded, sadly. It was hardly a revelation to him that, even as the Winter Soldier, some part of Bucky had been screaming out with every act of violence and murder he was forced to commit.

She took a deep breath, steadying herself. "Tony and Clint?"

"Haven't seen them."

The desperate sobs of young Natalia Romanova drew both of their attentions and Steve saw Natasha flinch, reacting in an emotional way he'd never really witnessed from her before. It served as a hard reminder that there were a great many things he didn't know about her past, or about the Black Widow programme which had trained her into being a coldhearted assassin for the Russian Government. It hadn't occured to him that she might even have crossed paths with the Winter Soldier before the incident in Odessa, where he'd put a bullet through her to get to his target; it wasn't something she'd ever even hinted at. But Steve couldn't find it in himself to be upset at the revelation, since this particular meeting had obviously been extremely traumatic.

"Steve." She was shaking him, pulling him from his thoughts. He turned in the direction she was nodding and saw a dark figure through the rain; the faint spectre of Bucky Barnes, watching them from afar.

Steve pulled her to her feet as best he could and the two of them made chase into the woods. But it was like following a ghost. As soon as they got into the thicket of trees, he was gone.

In barely an instant, they were coming out the other side, suddenly on top of a building. Steve kept running, seeing Bucky sitting against the edge of the roof terrace, curled around a long aim rifle, his whole body shaking as if he was crying. As they drew close, it became obvious that, again, it wasn't really Bucky.

"Tony?" Steve gasped in surprise.

There was no response. He was hiding his face against the gun and behind his metal arm, apparently trapped in some kind of grief or fear reaction.

Steve looked over the side of the building and saw a car wreck, smoke gathering pace along the front grating where it had hit a tree, blood splattered on the inside of the front windshield. He shuddered, realising exactly what he was looking at.

"I'm sorry Tony," he said, and put a hand on his shoulder.

"I couldn't stop myself," he muttered in response, "I was... thawed out... God that fucking hurt. Then I was stuck watching as they ordered me to... to... I couldn't stop it. I.. couldn't..."

"It's just a memory," Natasha said, her own brave face faltering a little. "You gotta push through it."

"Is this how he felt?" Tony continued, his tremors causing the front casing of the gun to rattle. "Fuck. _Fuck._ "

Steve pulled it from his hands and tossed it aside. Then he pulled a distant and still shaking Tony to his feet. "We need to find Clint and then we need to find Bucky."

"I think Bucky's down there," Natasha pointed out. "Look."

Both he and Tony turned to see that dim dark ghost of Bucky Barnes, still in his old work suit, standing by the car wreckage. They watched as he winched off one of the back doors and leaned inside, toward the small child strapped into the back seat.

"Oh gosh, I... I forgot..." Tony was muttering, talking to himself rather than them. "I forgot..."

The meaning of his words only became clear as Bucky reached inside and ripped the seatbelt which was trapping the little boy into the backseat completely in half to free him. He then drew back out, gracefully, and whipped around, looking back and up at them.

"I forgot he did that." Tony shook his head. "How could I forget?"

"Don't. You were just a kid." Steve watched the ghost walking away down the road as the smoke rising from the car turned into actual flames, his chest actually tugging in that direction.

"We should go after him. If nothing else, he might lead us to wherever Clint's ended up," Natasha said with a shrug of her shoulders. "Seems to be how this works."

"Right." Steve had to pause and take a deep breath to steel himself, the constant jerking around of his emotions and the sense of freefalling really starting to catch up with him. _Just hold it together_ , he kept telling himself, over and over. That phrase in mind, he headed over to the exit door and pulled it open, hurrying the others out.

"We look like we're at a convention," Tony sighed, looking between Natasha's getup and his own identical uniform as they headed into the stairwell. "My suits are more flattering."

"Your ass does look bigger in those pants," Steve heard Natasha saying and shook his head before following them out. The only thing worse than seeing these awful memories playing out for real was exposing his friends to them. Bucky was going to be real sore over it all as soon as he woke up, Steve just knew it.

They hit the bottom of the stairwell and Natasha flung open the doors at the bottom. Predicably, what lay on the other side was not the street or the car wreck.

Steve flinched back instantly before he could stop himself. "Oh no," he groaned, wincing as the sound of Wagner assalted his senses and flooded him with some terrible memories of his own.

It was the all-too familiar central hub where the Red Skull had roamed in his dreams, though it looked smaller and less pristine than he remembered in his own thoughts, and a great deal darker all over; maybe Bucky's memory of it was just that much more tainted.

Right in front of them was evidence as to why. Natasha and Tony reacted much more quickly than he did, Steve simply too caught in a shellshocked moment of reverie to move immediately. They hurried forward to help Clint, pulling at the rope around his neck, trying to get him down from where he was tied up and swinging, eyes bulging.

"Oh you can leave him," a voice which grated on Steve twice as badly as the opera did rung out, and he stepped into the room just as the Red Skull stepped out of the shadows. "He vill be perfectly alright. Ve have tested this once already."

Natasha and Tony managed to get Clint down to the floor and untied his hands from behind his back. He coughed hard as the air was finally allowed to return to his lungs.

"See. Ah he is strong. Ve have _made_ him strong."

Steve guessed, from the ratty woolen shirt and dogtags on Clint, that this was a memory from Bucky's time as HYDRA's pet science experiment, when he received the serum they'd distilled from Dr Erskine's research and they'd done some extensives 'tests' on him to gauge its effectiveness.

"Steve?" Natasha started, looking to him for some direction on what to do.

"A coiled snake, ready to strike... Another head of the beast. I told you this once before, my dear Captain," the Red Skull sneered, circling them in the shadows. "I told you that you would see one day." He laughed, and oh how Steve _hadn't_ missed that sound. "And as for you all," he continued, turning to the others present, "you have seen it too now. _He is one of us_."

Steve thought he saw Tony flinch and remembered that he had said those very words before himself, right after Bruce had shut the Winter Soldier down with that code word. Meanwhile, the Red Skull disappeared behind a column briefly, and when he walked out on the other side, he had suddenly changed into a different visage entirely.

"He's our precious child; our very own monster," Alexander Pierce continued in his place. "Who are you to decide otherwise, when everything you've all seen tells you otherwise?"

"Godamnit, stop playing games," Steve growled. "Where is he?" 

Pierce only smiled at his reaction. "Oh just leave him here, Cap. Let's face it, this is where he belongs." He pointed toward a set of large double doors off to the side of the room. "I'll make you an offer y'all can't refuse. Step out now and you get to wake up with not so much as a headache. I guarantee it."

"We're not leaving without him," Tony suddenly snarled, surprising everyone there with the vehemence in his voice. He leapt to his feet, fists balled and nearly shaking with anger.

"I suggest you let Barnes go or you're going to be stuck with us for a long long time," Natasha demanded next, holding onto a still-dazed Clint tightly but glaring up at Pierce. "You don't want that."

"Yeah, we're not great company. We chip all the china, leave crumbs all over the kitchen counters, and as for the coffee rings on your best surfaces... eesh." Tony was once again retreating into humour but his eyes were still made of storms and daggers. "Seriously. We're not going anywhere."

Steve blinked away his surprise at the way they were rallying, feeling unaccountably touched by the display.

Pierce passed by another pillar in his long walk around the outsides of the room. This time he emerged as a man Steve had thought he'd known well, back when he worked for SHIELD, but who turned out to be another HYDRA agent. Brock Rumlow was smiling at him darkly as he walked, his easy swagger perfectly replicated. "He knew it wasn't Pierce, you know. The recording I mean. The Asset guessed it was me and he was still too pussy to disobey those protocols," Rumlow chuckled. "Now you can't tell me that's not fucking pathetic, Cap. He knew if he gave in, he'd end up killing you all and yet... it was simple as all hell to make him do what we wanted. No willpower. I mean, c'mon. You gotta agree by now he's nothing but a worthless piece of..."

The last thread holding Steve Rogers together snapped at last and he practically flew across the space between them to land a punch on the spectre keeping him from finding Bucky.

Rumlow caught the tail edge of it but spinned himself out of the way. "Nice," he laughed, like they were old pals sparring.

The moment Tony and Natasha tried to move to join in, long red tentacles erupted out of the floor and wrapped around them, holding them in place despite their best efforts to pull free. Clint was also pulled down by the monster living under the floor beside them, even though he could barely move yet.

Rumlow launched himself at Steve, setting them into a tailspin of a fight, the ghost matching Steve hand to hand, blow for blow. He'd seen Rumlow fight in real life and he knew that he wasn't this good; this version would not be so easily beaten down. His missing arm made it twice as hard to keep it going but Steve was seeing red; angry in a way that he never normally managed.

Finally, he tripped Rumlow over and pushed him head first out of one of the floor to ceiling windows, smashing it completely. He pinned him down there, head dangling over the side, and started punching him across the face. "Where is he?" he roared between shattering punches. _"Where is he?"_

"Steve!" he heard Natasha yell behind him through a wind vacuum. "Steve, stop it!" Hands were on him, pulling at him, trying to pull him away from his mark.

Clint and Tony were suddenly behind him too, dragging him backwards."Get off me!" he shouted, struggling. "Get...!"

He blinked and stopped breathing when he saw that Rumlow was gone and there, finally, was Bucky, lying in a bloodied bundle in his old cheap suit, his face swelling from the punches Steve had been raining down on him. The window was gone; the entire room too. Suddenly they were all standing on one of the helecarriers launched for Project Insight, everything shaking and breaking apart around them.

Tony, Natasha and Clint were all back to normal, dressed in the outfits they had been wearing back in the medilab. Steve realised he was in his Captain America outfit, shield in his hand.

He looked up, heart beating faster, seeing the columns above snapping and one of the pillon struts starting to fall towards them. "Hang on!" he yelled to the others, knowing what was coming.

Everything erupted into a blur. Bucky fell, just as Steve had before. And just as the Winter Soldier had broke through his orders long enough to know that he had to act, Steve didn't hesitate to jump off the side and go down after him.

He landed in the water smoothly and dived down, searching for Bucky, and realised almost at once that Tony, Natasha and Clint had all made the jump too. He wasn't alone down there in the murky waters. Clint was the first one to grab onto Bucky, pulling him up just enough for the rest of them to take hold.

Together they kicked for the surface and, without even having to say a word, carried him in tandem through the water and across to the riverbank.

Steve curled himself around Bucky the moment they hit the dirt, clinging onto him, cupping his chin to encourage him to breathe. "You stupid jerk," he gasped, rocking him frantically, "you're not _one of them_. You're mine. End of the line, remember? You promised."

When there was no response given, he looked between his friends, not knowing what to do.

"Barnes... _James_ ," Natasha said, kneeling down and placing a hand on Bucky's arm, "you didn't deserve what they did to you. No more than I did. You gotta know... you gotta know I forgive you. For everything."

There was a faint flutter of his eyelashes, causing Tony kneel down and put a hand on him too. "I uh... I hated you for a long time... But I know what they did now. I... didn't realise just how... Look, I forgive you too champ, okay? Now come on back to us before the Cap here starts crying. I don't wanna see that."

Clint too kneeled down, placing a hand over his hand. He didn't say anything but there were tears in his eyes; a silent communication that whatever he'd seen and felt had affected him deeply too.

"Come on Buck," Steve muttered and kissed into his temple. "I saw what a life without you would have been like and it was hell. I can't survive without you. Never could, never would."

Tony groaned and rolled his eyes just as Bucky's eyes finally started to flicker open.

"Steve?" Bucky mururmed, listlessly.

"Yeah. I'm here."

And then Steve suddenly realised that he wasn't looking down at him anymore, he was looking aside. They were lying on those medical beds, side by side, hand in hand with the star pendant pressed between their palms. Bucky's eyes, fluttering open and focusing on him, looked bluer than he even remembered them being.

All around them, movement had erupted; Bruce, Dr Cho, maybe others rushing around, monitors beeping all over the place. But all he could do was stare at Bucky, overwhelmed with relief and stunned that the plan really had worked.

"Okay?" he mouthed, silently.

Bucky nodded and squeezed his hand in response, and Steve honestly fell in love with him all over again in that moment.


	5. Chapter 5

They waited in the long corridor outside Gróa's garden together in silence, Steve lost in thought, Thor watching him.  
  
They had had little choice but to respect Bucky's request to return the star pendant to her in private. There was a thread of history there that needed closure. But that didn't make it any easier for Steve to stay still as he felt Bucky's emotions spiking widly in all directions, the secondhand feelings of anger and regret turning to bitter salt on his tongue.

In time, to his great relief, the negative feelings receded and Steve began to feel a sense of peace washing over Bucky. It allowed him to finally relax too and to stop pacing. He breathed the dusty air in deeply, stretching his spine as he looked up, sending a silent prayer of thanks out to the universe that whatever Bucky's purpose had been in going in there alone, it had been the right choice not to argue the point.

"Your friend is well?" Thor asked, suprising Steve a little with his depth of understanding about their unusual connection.

"Oh. Yes. I think so."

The thunder god paused, thoughtfully, a smile playing about his lips. "It was many years ago now when I felt as you feel. In the natural order, the power she wields, the seiðr, it lives only briefly. We fell into a realm of miracles while I healed from the wounds of my battle, made love in an ocean of magic and chaos. For almost a day after, I could feel her every mood, every whim. I would have gladly served as her slave for all that day, had she let me - though I was less her thrall when I learned of her husband." He chuckled to himself at the memory.

His words made Steve laugh too, despite himself and his being on edge. "It's not exactly like that for us."

"For sure, it soured greatly on my part." Thor slapped Steve on the shoulder. "It will not be so for you. Long lives and much joy awaits."

"Here's hoping. It's... not been the easiest life so far." Steve stopped, uncertainly, not having really intended to bring up the main subject on his mind, but sensing it might be the right time to do so. "I do have a possible favour to ask."

"Ask away, my brother."

"You're staying here on Asgard, right?"

Thor nodded, grinning. "For a time. Jane has planned to take leave of her work for a season. I shall have a feast of celebration."

"Then I wonder if you might be able to make room for two more? I'm..." he stumbled over his words, finding it difficult to vocalise what he needed to say, "I spoke with Bucky about coming here, you know, for good. If you approve of course." Steve swallowed down the sinking feeling that accompanied the idea of leaving Earth; of leaving America and the Avengers, everything and everyone he knew, maybe forever. "It seems like the right solution, doesn't it? Keeps Bucky out of HYDRA's hands. Could be a fresh start for us both."

"I will be more than happy to welcome you each to my land, of course, for as long as you wish it..."

A rush of wind and the sound of a door opening started them from their conversation. Bucky trod the great hall almost silently, head down, hunched in on himself.

"Hey," Steve said, itching to touch him but sensing his lover probably wasn't in the mood. "All alright?"

Bucky nodded. "Time to leave," he said, not meeting his eyes, sounding bone tired.

They returned along the path in silence, back to the city and to the Rainbow Bridge. There was something hanging in the air, unsaid and yet thickly present. All of them were deep in thought in their own ways.

The moment they landed back at the top of the Tower, Bucky headed to the elevator, not stopping to see if Steve was following. Steve remained behind briefly to thank Thor and to find out how long they had to make their final decision, before he would be return to Asgard and the opportunity to escape was lost.

He soon got the sense that Bucky had crashed and gone straight to sleep. Steve headed on down to their apartment to join him but was surprised to find their bed unoccupied. The guest rooms on their floor were also empty. He asked JARVIS for Bucky's location and was further surprised to be told that he was "not at liberty to say".

Steve checked a few other areas they frequented, feeling more than a little concerned and a bit lost. He found Clint and Natasha in conversation in one of the communal kitchens but they both said they hadn't seen Bucky.

They immediately dropped what they were doing and joined him in the search, catching him off guard completely; he knew that the dynamics of the group had felt a little different in the days since everyone woke up from the accidental excursion into some of Bucky's worst memories, but he hadn't expected that reaction.

The three of them headed to the medilab where Bruce was to be found working on one of his projects, chatting amiably with Dr Cho. Although neither of them had seen Bucky either, the moment Steve told them that JARVIS had refused to locate him, Bruce got a knowing look. It was exchanged with Natasha.

She beckoned Steve to one of the elevators and told it to take him down to Tony's floor before stepping out to let him go it alone, giving him only a shrug in explanation.

That was one place Steve knew he wouldn't have thought to look, but it made sense of why JARVIS had become so unhelpful all of a sudden. Though why Bucky would go anywhere near Tony's private wing, Steve couldn't fathom.

He had to wait for JARVIS to gain permission to allow him in, which only compounded the mystery - it wasn't as if Bucky could have snuck in unknown - and he had to take directions to find Tony in his sprawling personal section of the tower. He was in his study, checking over what looked like security reports on hovering holographic screens. He pretty much ignored Steve's presence, pausing only to note his return from "the Emerald City" with a comment about flying monkeys that was completely lost on him.

Steve felt like a bit of an idiot asking if Bucky was there, but sure enough Tony shrugged and said he was. "Well he hasn't been sleeping well since we dropped the S-Bomb on him, _as you know_. I gave him the option of trying out my super cool normally completely off-limits isolation pod. Actually, to be fair, Bruce designed it to see if it would help him with his issues but never did much for him. The Buckster looked a little frayed around the edges earlier. Wanted in. I said sure."

"Oh." He was a little hurt thinking that Bucky was doing this to get away from him specifically. Although he'd been through times when Bucky would withdraw from him completely like this, back during their Commando days, since then they had come to turn to each other for whatever was on their minds. He didn't like not having that sense of certainty in their connection.

"Oh god, don't look at me like that, I can't take those puppy dog eyes," Tony groaned. "Focus on the important stuff. We've lost the trail on this Rumlow guy but we are narrowing the field down pretty nicely for some of his bosom buddies so... time for the Avengers to, you know, Avenge." Tony toasted his own words by taking a large sip of the whiskey he was clinging onto with white fingers. "I don't know about you but I'm tired of waiting around here for them to try again. It's sure not doing the kid any good."

"That kid is about fifty years older than you," Steve noted, bemused by his attitude.

"Well if you want to get pedantic." Tony watched Steve looking back to the door as if trying to decide what to do, and sighed. "Give the guy a break, Mother Hen."

Steve acquiesced, awkwardly. He took a look at some of the maps and plans being laid out on Tony's screens and he was impressed by the attention to detail. Some serious work had clearly gone into his plans. "Look, Tony, I really appreciate everything you've done for us..."

"Don't," Tony said, a little harder in tone than usual. He offered Steve a tumbler of whiskey and added it to his own measure when it was refused. He then beckoned for Steve to sit down on his couch and dumped himself heavily in an easy chair across from it. "I don't say this too often but... I was wrong about him. I treated him pretty badly when you first brought him here and I'm actually not too proud of it." There was a maudlin sort of undertone to the way he was speaking. The light in his office was minimal and dark, but his eyes were glinting from a lamp on one of his bookcases. His stillness felt a little odd to Steve; he was so used to Stark being a bundle of frenetic energy. "I didn't really think too much about it before, but this is what I should have been doing since it all came out. Hunting HYDRA down; avenging my father. It's a bit Hollywood backstory, I know, but you get my point." Tony took a particularly large swig of his his drink and coughed a little at the burn in his throat. "It's not just about them now either. I think the Buckster deserves a bit of payback too."

"You know," Steve sighed, leaning back and getting comfortable, relaxing a little, "it really all started with Bucky. The Avengers I mean. Before his division got captured, I was just a touring act and a poster boy. Broke every rule in the book to go after him. Your dad and Peggy helped me actually. They are what really brought Captain America came to life. I went into war thinking I was protecting my country. Truth is, I was chasing him. When he died - when I _thought_ he'd died - he was the one I vowed to avenge."

"Funny how things turn out," Tony conceded with a snort.

"But the thing is, Bucky's alive. He's with me now and..."

"You're thinking of retiring." Despite the clown act, Tony could be pretty perceptive when he chose to be. His eyes settled on a photo on his desk, of him and Pepper, and he smiled, softly. "Yeah, I know that feeling. Well, whatever you decide, it's all good by me."

Steve couldn't quite hide his bemusement at just how much Tony had changed his tune on that too. Though that little excursion into Bucky's memories had been uncomfortable and, well, Bucky hadn't exactly been too thrilled about it, it really had done some good. Even Natasha, for all her training and history as an assassin for the Russians, hadn't really grasped just what Bucky had gone through.

They chatted gently for a while and, in the end, Steve let Bucky remain undisturbed. Even though he couldn't find the dreamscape for some reason when he later slept, and even though Bucky was apparently catching up all of his missing downtime all at once by sleeping in the pod for something like thirty hours straight, he remained calm about it, prepared to wait. And even when Tony suggested Bucky wasn't sleeping, just hiding out there and thinking, he stayed calm and accepted that.

Finally, he sensed his best friend and lover was out of the pod and was glad to get nothing but a sense of peace radiating from him across their connection. He played some late night pool with Clint for a while, letting Bucky go do what he wanted to without disturbance. Then, at last, he was rewarded with a call out from JARVIS.

"Sergeant Barnes requests that you join him on the top floor suite as soon as is convenient," the AI told him.

Smiling, he excused himself almost immediately and headed up to the Star Gallery, feeling his skin humming with an excitement he simply couldn't hide.

He could hear music before he even opened the door to the suite; something jazzy and swinging from the days of their youth. Steve couldn't help but sigh happily as he realised what it was.

_Kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again._  
It's been a long, long time...

The light inside the room was dimmed to nothingness and Steve was intrigued to discover that a fair few candles had been dotted around the floor along the edges, around by the windows, all lit to cast a collective warm glow. He stepped inside, looking around for Bucky and didn't see him, but he sighed again as he felt a hand slide up his back and come to rest between his shoulderblades.

Bucky circled around him, that hand sliding around his ribs, and pulled him in for a gentle dance to the music, calling to his mind a time long ago, in their dreams, when Bucky had still been cold and confused but had held him the same way and had, through that act of trust, finally started to come back to himself.

"The candles were Natasha's idea," he whispered into Steve's ear, wryly. "Bruce and Tony set them up while Clint kept you busy."

"Is that so?" Steve chuckled, heart beating faster at the way their hips were sliding itno deliberate alignment.

"You have some strange friends."

"Not sure they're any stranger than the Commandos were."

That earned him an honest bark of a laugh. "Got that right, pal. Must be something about us poor fools who fall in with the likes of Steve Rogers. We all come out mad or head over heels in love. Maybe both." Bucky nibbled along Steve's jaw and brushed their lips together like he was making a promise. "I like them," he said, "and we're _not_ going to Asgard."

Steve pulled back a little in surprise. "We're... we're not?"

"Not like you to run away from a fight, Rogers." He looked confident in his statement, like he'd been doing some serious thinking and had found all the answers he needed along the way. "Before HYDRA came after me, I wanted to go travelling, see the world, all that. I did. I wanted out.. But the thing is, I finally pulled it all together in my head. What HYDRA did wasn't just to me. It was to you. To Tony and his folks. To Natasha. To Sam too. Everyone's deserving of some justice in this. There's no running."

Bucky led a slightly stunned Steve over to the mess of cushions and sheets at the centre of the room where they'd slept together under the stars numerous times. He kissed him until he was boneless and then pulled Steve down to lie beside him, tangling their limbs easily.

"I also wanna say, I'm sorry that star lady showed you what she showed you," Bucky added, quietly. "She... it wasn't necessary. But aside from that, you gotta know, I would make that same choice a thousand times over. I mean that."

The sudden onslaught of fragmented memories from that hideous reality that had thankfully never come to be left Steve shaken and overwhelmed. They hit him like a slug bullet to the chest, merciless and painful. "Bucky," he sobbed, involuntarily.

"S'okay," Bucky said and pulled him in close while also reaching out mentally to soothe him, lighting up his mind and making everything seem okay again. He nuzzled the few escaped tears on Steve's cheeks away with his nose. "I'm here."

And Steve had a sudden flash of memory, the moment he'd found Bucky dead in the base in the reality shown to him by Gróa, his insides torn apart, the blood dripping everywhere. The shudder he felt was instantly echoed by the body pressed against him.

"Don't think of that stuff," Bucky gasped, and Steve realised with regret that he must have caught a glimpse of that particular memory. "None of it matters. It didn't happen that way." Bucky rolled himself over so he was straddling Steve's lap, sitting over him with his hands braced either side. "Let's make new memories. This was supposed to be romantic, you jerk."

Steve gasped as Bucky rolled his hips a little and then pulled his shirt over his shoulders, making a show of undressing. Even though the join of flesh and metal on his left side was still jarring to Steve, always would be, the sight of him stripping down made him tingle in his belly. He knew he was transmitting his excitement because he was getting the same feelings right back.

Without warning, Bucky put a hand on his chest and focused down on him, and suddenly Steve was seeing a flash of his lover in the shower, hand curled up beween his legs, fingers sliding in and out of his body. He yelped in surprise and felt himself become remorselessly hard. "What was that?" he choked out.

"Half an hour ago." Hot breath ghosted over his cheek as Bucky leaned in close. "I'm all open and I'm aching for you," he confessed, breathily. "Touch me." He guided Steve's hand into the loose sweatpants he had put on, encouraging him to curl his fingers under and feel the heat gathering and the slickness put there just for him.

Some primal instinct spiked in Steve's brain and he flipped Bucky over onto his back, gripping onto his hips while he devoured his mouth hard. He stripped off Bucky's pants, ripping one side of them accidently in the process, and then eagerly crawled downwards to take him deep into his throat.

Every suck and nip he gave left its trace in his own groin, the sensations echoing between them and going back and forth. Bucky gripped the sheets, head thrown back so that his neck was completely exposed, little breathless gasps escaping him and sparking like coals being added to a raging fire low in Steve's belly. Once again, he felt astounded to have Bucky here, with him now, against so many odds. It chased the spectre of the other version of their history away, lightening that burden from his shoulders; because there was simply no way he could imagine any other outcome than this; because this was the kid he'd loved since the day he given him those shiny shoes and when Steve Rogers loved someone, really and truly, it was for life.

When he pulled up, Bucky leapt forward onto his knees and kissed him hard, both arms wrapped around his shoulders tightly, one warm, one cold. Then the warm was gone and he was dipping his hand in a round pot of something sweet smelling, left helpfully nearby on the floor next to the sheets. Bucky had clearly known exactly where it was, not even needing to turn his head to reach for it, still kissing Steve as it was found. Then his palm curled around Steve's hardness and his fingers slid up and down it, teasing, making him all slick.

"I know what you're thinking," Bucky said as Steve moaned into his cheek, "What did I do to deserve such a great best pal?"

"Mm, don't need to be psychic to aaah... know that."

Bucky chuckled, voice husky. "I can feel what I'm doing to you, kinda, so I know it's good." As if to emphasise the point, he rolled his hand in a way which made Steve catch his breath and then Bucky moaned himself in response. "This is what the universe gave me back. Got a chance to do this, for real. I never wanna stop doing this."

"Me neither." Steve's brain was too fried to say what he was really feeling, all that heartbursting emotion just going all over the place, but he knew the message was getting through all the same.

"I know pal, I know." And all at once Bucky was on him, surrounding him, somehow in him too, riding him, forehead to forehead.

The old times music that had been playing in the background gently faded away, leaving nothing but the sound of their stuttering breaths, the wet slide of skin on skin, the occasional whir of Bucky's metal arm flexing erratically as his control slipped. Hours of peaks and falls captured them, the serum that had reshaped both men making the highs nearly continuous, with little time needed in between to recover.

Eventually they sank into an exhausted heap of tangled limbs, shivering with sweat, lost in that all-encompassing connection.

Bucky just kept nuzzling against Steve's nose, eyes fluttering, sighing happily. "Sleep," he murmured, pulling the sheets tight up around them.

But the thought actually jolted Steve a little, sending a spike of worry through them both. "The apartment... it was gone. The dream..."

"Shh. S'there," Bucky reassured him, his human hand running through Steve's hair. "If not, will put it back. Just as before. Old creaky bed... stupid broken couch... your desk... the godamned wallpaper... that big ol' closet... uh, those raggey old curtains up in the bedroom... the sheets..."

Steve let his eyes flutter closed to the sound of Bucky's voice, drawing that place of mental sanctuary for him again, piece by piece, line by line, the architecture winding upwards in his mind like a pop up book; all the threads that had entwined their lives for a century, caught in snapshots and given a breath of extraordinary life.

Before he knew it, Steve was there again, standing in the street before the tenement block where their apartment was, right back where it belonged. He realised belatedly that Bucky was standing beside him, staring up at it too, a faint smile playing about his lips.

Bucky turned to him, that smile growing and becoming brilliant, radiant, as his hand slipped into Steve's. "Let's go home," he said.

Two boys who had dreamed of a world together, across hopeless years of war and decades of cold seperation, stepped forward and made that walk home side by side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it for this universe I guess. I made sure to finish this story but I'm kind of guessing it wasn't too many people's cup of tea, so sorry if it was disappointing in any way. The psychic thing is a good premise so maybe another author will pick it up!


End file.
